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Re: General Discussions

Reply #2085 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Not true.  There has been a massive sell off recently, as land tac, vacancy tax etc have led to peninsula houses being sold off. 

The place has always been sleepy, and retirement/holiday folks.  The cost of hiring a place for the summer has sky-rocketed due to lack of supply of holiday rentals.
That doesn't seem to be represented in the numbers, for example some areas are reported to have fallen in price recently, dropped by -3%, -7% even some as higher as -12%, but that's off the back of earlier +23% rises over the pandemic, so it's not really a drop at all and the rise in average house prices far exceeds many other surrounding areas on average over the similar term.

Further, the short to medium term outlook is for even more price growth, with market analysts predicting the current decline to be recouped and surpassed before the end of 2025. The industry advice is to buy now, because things are not going to get better than the current bounce.

This seems to be making the Mornington Peninsula a prime region for investors, and is driving the house prices well beyond what the bulk of locals can afford.

This market shift is often denied by groups that have vested interests, like developers and investors, some of them actively opposing in VCAT the council's efforts to bring affordable living to the area. Some regions have long term occupancy rates below 60%, that means 1 in 3 houses is a short stay.

Last year I read an article of a group complaining about the lack of council action on failing infrastructure, the fact the complaints were about infrastructure provided by the state so not a council issue at all is irrelevant. Regardless, the council had approached the state about having the problems remediated and the answer was no with the lack of permanent residency in the affected areas being the reason for the refusal. The issues were brought back to council by the same group, but the second time they were claiming failed or lack of facilities infrastructure was impacting tourism. It turns out the complaint is mostly driven by investor groups wanting infrastructure to support new short term developments. Even one of the big private golf clubs got in on the action asking that the council, which means locals, to fund infrastructure re-routing after having associated land re-zoned. What are/were they wanting, infrastructure to support 500 new short term accommodation apartments!

Entities like that don't invest where prices are going backwards.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2086 –
Quote from: Gointocarlton – on
I have a place just up the road in North Portsea (aka Rosebud) and every time we drive passed the Macrae houses on that cliff face, we always comment "how the f - - k do you get up there" and "how the hell did they build them". Like you Baggers, I prefer terra flatus and well clear of bushfirustreeus. In fact, one of the house has an elevator of some sort that runs up the cliff.
Nearly all of them have lane or road access from the inland side, the roads and lanes are barely visible until pointed out.

The elevator will be to allow the owners easy access to the beach side without trudging up and down the steep cliff, many build staircases. I suppose it's no different to places like Ocean Grove or Woolamai, on a recent trip I was shocked seeing the change in those areas. They use to be fibro holiday homes, now they are deluxe villas with double glazing and rooftop decks for elevated views. They are becoming commuter locations for people working "flexible" hours.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2087 –
Quote from: LP – on
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Not true.  There has been a massive sell off recently, as land tac, vacancy tax etc have led to peninsula houses being sold off. 

The place has always been sleepy, and retirement/holiday folks.  The cost of hiring a place for the summer has sky-rocketed due to lack of supply of holiday rentals.
That doesn't seem to be represented in the numbers, for example some areas are reported to have fallen in price recently, dropped by -3%, -7% even some as higher as -12%, but that's off the back of earlier +23% rises over the pandemic, so it's not really a drop at all and the rise in average house prices far exceeds many other surrounding areas on average over the similar term.

Further, the short to medium term outlook is for even more price growth, with market analysts predicting the current decline to be recouped and surpassed before the end of 2025. The industry advice is to buy now, because things are not going to get better than the current bounce.

This seems to be making the Mornington Peninsula a prime region for investors, and is driving the house prices well beyond what the bulk of locals can afford.

This market shift is often denied by groups that have vested interests, like developers and investors, some of them actively opposing in VCAT the council's efforts to bring affordable living to the area. Some regions have long term occupancy rates below 60%, that means 1 in 3 houses is a short stay.

Last year I read an article of a group complaining about the lack of council action on failing infrastructure, the fact the complaints were about infrastructure provided by the state so not a council issue at all is irrelevant. Regardless, the council had approached the state about having the problems remediated and the answer was no with the lack of permanent residency in the affected areas being the reason for the refusal. The issues were brought back to council by the same group, but the second time they were claiming failed or lack of facilities infrastructure was impacting tourism. It turns out the complaint is mostly driven by investor groups wanting infrastructure to support new short term developments. Even one of the big private golf clubs got in on the action asking that the council, which means locals, to fund infrastructure re-routing after having associated land re-zoned. What are/were they wanting, infrastructure to support 500 new short term accommodation apartments!

Entities like that don't invest where prices are going backwards.

Those percentages are they price or owner demographic related?

Your statements are contradictory.  On the one hand you are talking about people purchasing the property down there by folks fleeing Melbourne and driving prices up, on the other you are talking prices in general.

Whilst the two might be correlated, they don't represent what your original argument was, which is:

Quote
A lot of the properties down that way are largely unaffordable to locals, snapped up by inner city dwellers heading south for the pandemic, then rather than selling when they moved back, they renovated and turned the properties into short stay rentals, I have read on more than one occasion many people on the peninsula complaining about that behaviour, driving up house prices, and worse still small business owners reporting the evaporation of a huge chunk of local trade.

Like I stated (your numbers back this up somewhat) that people have been shying away from this due to the aforementioned taxes.  Where they hold a holiday home, they hold a capital appreciating asset, and will retain them and are not doing them up solely for rental income, as there is a lack of rental property available, and when it is, it is so astronomically expensive, that every day folks cannot rent them.  Its not uncommon to see 6k for a week in Mount Martha as an example, because of a lack of competition for said property. 

We rent our house out to a family who have been in the property for a very long time now (14 years).  We have always charged at the bottom of the rental market to them, and we have not raised the rent year on year, but have kept it low enough to retain the person who generally looks after the place and calls it home, but have had to keep up with market pressures, because AGENTS have driven that conversation. 

There is a lack of schools, PT, health and road infrastructure to properly support communities of people that live down there, and property by the sea will always be expensive ergo the locals complaining are doing so are in line with arguments of greater Melbourne home ownership as median house prices in the peninsula are at worst on par with whats happening in Melbourne.  I.e.  If you purchase in Mornington, Capel Sound, Hastings, and some of the less desirable places down there, you will do better for the price of a property than much more affluent areas in greater Melbourne, and therefore, all I see is scope for it to increase further in future, depending on the factors of location, location, location by the sea.

The locals complaining about affordability, would do well to cast their eyes to less desirable places, and note that places like Frankston North, and Seaford, are still on par, which generally means, that they aren't going down, nor is the affordability on the peninsula due to inner city types.  Its simply a matter of urban sprawl and the consequence of the city that is their life line, growing to the point where people would look there, and rather live there, than an urban jungle halfway between Melbourne and Shepparton or Geelong.


The locals can complain, but its no different to whats happened through most of Melbourne, where the "kids" who are my age, can no longer afford to purchase property in the places they grew up, because for the same reason.  Thing is, this is market capitalism at work, in a growing population, not people driving up prices.  No one cared when I brought up the general lack of ability for young people to afford homes a little while across all of melbourne, and it comes across as disingenuous when Mornington Peninsula people complain as people missed the boat years ago as property prices down there were fairly suppressed up until the Melbourne housing explosion.  We paid 345k for our place down there at a time, when my sister purchased in Box Hill South for just over 600k because I couldnt afford more than that at the time.

Any recent stuff, is more than likely a result of the Martha Cove developement, and the peninsula link freeway build.  That and the fact, that you can still purchase a good property a short drive to the Ocean, which puts you in competition with suburbs like Moorabin if we are talking inner city Melbourne. 



"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2089 –
I don't have any problems with the figures that the linked article lists, the problem is that various groups take on the reasoning that is politically or commercially motivated which harms the future prospects of our children or grandchildren.

One group claims people are departing the market segment, selling off to get out, except there remains availability problem, not just the Mornington Peninsula by in many similar areas. I'd assert not all but the bulk of those claims are bogus. Mostly propagated to build political opposition to the short stay fees and taxes. On the real experience case, I have friends and associates living on the Peninsula that have typically 30% of surrounding properties as Short Stay, mostly properties forming some part of an investment portfolio for self-funded retirees.

In all seriousness, these are people loudly claiming premium property prices based on annual income of $50K/yr, while arguing in the media that a $350/yr fee has made the enterprise no longer viable. Are they that cheap, what in life made them so bitter that they rape society for $5/week? The same group complain and lobby about parking fees, fees they aren't around to pay on the Peninsula but pay by default where they live.

The second group, is the group demanding infrastructure and support for properties they own but do not live in and do not offer a long term rental, I have zero problem with what you do, long term rental is exactly what is needed in these areas. Basically they are demanding council based funding to service and entertain their client base, again these are properties claiming premiums on sale due to income measured in increments of $30k to $50k/ yr. In someway this infrastructure group is more insidious, because hiding in this demographic are developers who want infrastructure, shops, schools and facilities without making a contribution. They are happy to tap in to resource providers by other for profit.

Long term rental is an issue, my colleagues have adult children moving home not because they can afford to rent, but because they are being kicked out as having long term tenants is no longer desirable compared to short stay. It's not a case of affordability for those individuals, and that also drives up the price because they offer more and more but are still rejected. I have one colleague who through one of the popular platforms moves out of his home over summer and draws sufficient income over a 2 or 3 month period to pay for an extended holiday and service his annual mortgage, so profitable it was viable for him to have an architect design and manage the build of hidden rooms / voids that store his precious items, cheaper to do that then rent offsite storage. He tells me that short stay rental income adds about 25% value to his home, and he complained to me about the new fees!

An even stupider group are the "Beach Boxheads", screaming about the loss of amenity, dirty beaches, no free parking spaces, protesting rising fees, demanding action against rising tides or loss of sand. Yet most of them, more than 80% apparently, have a place of primary residence far far away from the council they berate so they pay little fees in the beach box location, they expect locals to fund their folly's very existence.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2090 –
Mornington Peninsula isnt the working mans Amalfi coast anymore, its where a lot of working class families live and commute into the city each day for work now ,live on Estates and do it tough. Sure you have the Toorak side down at Portsea and some nice beach front homes here and there but its changed a lot from what it was. My family had a little holiday house in Rosebud for years when it was classified as so far out you could get your car registration cheaper and a lot of Continental folk would retire there, catch their fish, grow their grapes and have the family down for Christmas and people would camp and stay in caravans near the foreshore but its all changed now and is part of the suburban crawl.
Mornington shire are a woeful council, dont fix anything , never did and usually have a line of VCAT disputes happening as well as not being able to get along with South East Water and United Energy so things move slowly.
The area is over populated and sadly where a lot of homeless people live in tents, cars and to be honest its lost its charm and appeal and I dont even go there anymore.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2091 –
Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on
The area is over populated and sadly where a lot of homeless people live in tents, cars and to be honest its lost its charm and appeal and I dont even go there anymore.
I think part of the problem is that it goes from overcrowded to ghost like subject to the season, it's the same for any of these regions here and OS, and it looks to me like there is a push for it to change before some of our local regions become the next Greece and collapse under seasonal swings.

Interestingly, the pandemic exposed many contradictions. On the old Portsea / Sorrento association for example, it's deceptive. When people read stories about state funding they think Portsea / Sorrento, and nothing gets said about how the state government calculates it's plastic funding. For example, whether the Peninsula is treated as regional or metropolitan seems to depend on the potential total spend, it always gets whichever is lower. Across the bay, with a similar population and contributing a lower gross income to the state, Handbaggerville gets about 6x the funding because it's labelled regional, and in recent times the Western District is the holiday home land of Jacinta, Dan, Denis, Steve, etc., and has been on the receiving end of golden handshakes for over two decades. But as you state, the toff's that seem to get trotted out as the excuse for leaving the Peninsula to rot are about 1% of the population, the rest pay a high price for having them as neighbours.

Interestingly, even many of the toff's are transient, one of Lindsay Fox's big bugbears was he was challenged about property developments by some neighbours who barely visit the joint and only drink wine from France and beef from Argentina. Some of these billion$ cheapskates even sack the gardener over winter, at least Lindsay lives, eats and trades in the area all year round, the others are bullsh1t personified.

I heard a story a year or two back about a pool builder, they had a Portsea project going on, a pool with a $10M budget. The build took about 6 months, in that time they saw the owner everyday, they flew in from the CBD via helicopter to inspect the work and given the schedule I presume to make sure the trades weren't pinching anything, marble tiles, gold taps, etc., etc.., stayed for 5 minutes and then f5cked off back to the CBD in the helicopter. The only people they saw stay in the joint was the personal staff of some Arab Sheik horse owner, it seems it was the "shack" he rented for the staff while the Spring Racing was in full flight, they come and went via helicopter as well, never spent a cent locally, showered the neighbourhood with Avgas fumes!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2092 –
From today's Age:

David Kennedy, a professor in physical geography at the University of Melbourne, has spent 20 years studying erosion on Victoria’s coastline and says many of the houses on the McCrae hillside are built on an ancient sea cliff that is prone to erosion.

He says the area will always be vulnerable to landslides because the terrain is a mixture of hard granite and softer earth.

“It’s an area that probably shouldn’t be built on because it’s already quite steep, and it’s quite unstable.”

The hill is lined with old gullies where water has flowed towards the bay, Kennedy says. Many gullies would have been built on, forcing natural flows to find a new way to the water.

“So the question then becomes, what change have we done that has turned it from an old cliff and what would have been bush area when we developed it? I would be suspicious that there are old gullies that have been in-filled in that cliff face, and they’re going to funnel more water through.”
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2093 –
Quote from: DJC – on
“So the question then becomes, what change have we done that has turned it from an old cliff and what would have been bush area when we developed it? I would be suspicious that there are old gullies that have been in-filled in that cliff face, and they’re going to funnel more water through.”
Any of us who have been living or visiting that region for a long time have seen the changes, most of those block 50 years back had lightweight pole houses on them, not much more than upscale boathouse. Over time the blocks get sold and the replacements / rebuilds become ever more complex, they aren't holiday lets anymore they are now fulltime homes.

I talked to a engineer yesterday who does a bit of work in that area, we were talking about crooks stealing tools and stuff out of utes middle of the day, but I had to ask him about McCrae and he gave me a dumbed down answer. He said he did a bit of work around Mt Martha, Mornington and Mount Eliza. Apparently it's quite common in those areas to have a clay cap on top of ancient sea floor or shell filled deposits from past major events. ( Some radicals try to claim these shell rich layers are proof of ancient indigenous middens, but the shell filled layer is far far older than humans, in some areas can be metres thick and covers the huge percentage of the Peninsula. ) In some areas the clay cap is quite thin maybe a metre, in other areas it can been 10m thick. He said where the clay is thin it's common to dig through the various layers and find a sheet of continuously running water from springs or run off. I'm assuming McCrae would be similar. Interestingly, he said a huge contribution to the water problems lately is that since the pandemic the water authorities have not kept up servicing and maintenance of the storm water system, and now they are struggling to catch up with so many storm water drains blocked. Recommends people take a look at the storm water drains around their area and if blocked send a pic using the Snap Send Solve or things won't change, I suppose whingers are winners.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2094 –
The substantial house directly above the landslide was built around 90 years ago.  Apart from the now demolished house that was at 3 Penny Lane, the neighbourhood hasn't changed much and there weren't "lightweight pole houses" 50 years ago.

Yes, the Port Phillip Basin has extensive marine fossil beds and clay deposits but that's not the case at McCrae.  Spring Hill, as it used to be known, is a granite landform with a veneer of unconsolidated sands and conglomerates, and, guess what; groundwater bubbling to the surface!

I'd love to know who the radicals are that try to claim the fossil beds are ancient Indigenous middens.  There are extensive middens and occupation sites around the Bay, but they are well-known to be relatively recent.  Indeed, the local Aboriginal people have an oral tradition that their ancestors hunted kangaroos and emus on plains that are now under the Bay.  While the Bay originally formed around 10,000 years ago, research by Dr Guy Holdgate has demonstrated that it was dry land again from around 2,800 to 1,000 years ago.  The "radicals" were quite chuffed to have their oral traditions verified by scientific research.  They know that the shell middens now visible around the Bay generally date to shortly before the Bay dried up or after it filled again and have never claimed that the fossil deposits are cultural sites. 
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2095 –
Without seeing decent before and after photos (before as in regularly over the last decade) its hard to pinpoint an issue.

However, a common issue in these instances is removal of vegetation. Landscaping.

People want to remove 'unsightly' trees and install 'pretty' lawn and plants. In doing so, you are weakening the ground as the trees are basically holding it together. The pretty lawn and plants are surface layers only.
On top of that, you are probably watering your lawn and plants a lot more than your native trees who basically require nothing. That in turn can become an issue.

So i'd suggest that might be a contributing factor to what happened up the hill to contribute to all this.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2096 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
Without seeing decent before and after photos (before as in regularly over the last decade) its hard to pinpoint an issue.

However, a common issue in these instances is removal of vegetation. Landscaping.

People want to remove 'unsightly' trees and install 'pretty' lawn and plants. In doing so, you are weakening the ground as the trees are basically holding it together. The pretty lawn and plants are surface layers only.
On top of that, you are probably watering your lawn and plants a lot more than your native trees who basically require nothing. That in turn can become an issue.

So i'd suggest that might be a contributing factor to what happened up the hill to contribute to all this.
Think its a feature of that coastal area, houses were falling down Olivers Hill way back in the 40's and footpaths were disappearing into the sea. The following article mentions vegetation removal requiring permits back 13 years ago so you are on the money with your comments.
https://alysialts.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/mornington-peninsula-susceptible-to-landslide/
For those who like a bit of history... https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22762908

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2097 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
Without seeing decent before and after photos (before as in regularly over the last decade) its hard to pinpoint an issue.

However, a common issue in these instances is removal of vegetation. Landscaping.

People want to remove 'unsightly' trees and install 'pretty' lawn and plants. In doing so, you are weakening the ground as the trees are basically holding it together. The pretty lawn and plants are surface layers only.
On top of that, you are probably watering your lawn and plants a lot more than your native trees who basically require nothing. That in turn can become an issue.

So i'd suggest that might be a contributing factor to what happened up the hill to contribute to all this.

Yes, removal of vegetation is a major factor in terms of loss of the stabilising action of large root systems and the siphoning of groundwater.

However, I think that interfering with the natural drainage by construction, utilities installation, landscaping, vegetation removal, etc is the killer, particularly when you’re starting with an unstable landform.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2098 –
This is the Point Nepean Road in the 1920s, the lighthouse is still there across the road from where Alatonero Restaurant now stands, the hillside on the left is where Penny Lane and Viewpoint Road now exist.



Our family use to spend summer down there in the 1950s and 60s, see the canon on the left of the road, there use to be a bloke who sold crays straight out of the boiling drum / barrel at the spot and dad would always stop the Model T and buy one on the way past. You can just see in the distance Rosebud.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #2099 –
Canon


I think the canons marked the entrance to a nursery full of pots and garden gnomes.

This photo would have been taken from the pinnacle of Dromana Foreshore Reserve, the end of the section of road that now has the breakwater and no beach.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"