五種選擇SUBURB的方法----
Five steps in choosing a suburb:
http://www.viacorp.com/perth-suburbs-compared.html#neighbours
1. Rent somewhere and maybe rent again
Unless you're still in a hotel, you already must be renting somewhere. So this Step 1 is obvious. Except for one thing: after you find a suburb where you want to buy, it can make sense to move again and rent in that suburb first. (For rental searches, this is a good one: Reiwa rental properties.) Renting is to make sure it will all work for you, particularly the next point...
2. Work out how you'll later want to get around
This is a big one. If you get it wrong, it will jinx the most magnificent house. Because getting around will be a depressing hassle.
Here's an example. Charlotte works in my wife's office. She leaves her ocean suburb of Quinns Rocks at 6.30 in the morning and drives south on the Mitchell Freeway. Which gets her to the office in the city (in Hill Street, across from the Perth Mint) at about 8 o'clock. One and a half hours to cover about 45km. Average speed: 30kmh. And almost all on a freeway where she's allowed to go 100kph. If she could. "From time to time, traffic almost stops," sighs Charlotte. "The train is quicker, but totally packed during rush hours. I'd rather drive, bad as it is, than stand up all the way in the train." After fourteen months of this, she is resigning. And finding work instead in Joondalup.
Working out your travel choices isn't too hard. Ponder how the people in your house will get to work or school or university. Then experiment. If you'll probably be travelling along the Great Eastern, then picking up the Graham Farmer, going through the tunnel, turning onto Loftus and into West Perth, try it during rush hour! Try it in the morning, try it in the evening. If you plan to live in Darlington and you have a job in the heart of the city, and you like the idea of the train, then park at Midland Station and experience the trip.
The light rail system around Perth is fast, frequent, modern, and on-time (and sometimes packed). If you buy a house near a train station, that could solve a lot. ( Rail system PDF map.) But you need to try it and see. There are also buses that run everywhere.
For this travel planning, you'll need your road map of Perth Metro, a map of the rail system (if trains appeal), and the persistence of a forensic scientist. Keep at it until you're sure.
There are aids. If you want to conduct stay-at-home research into road traffic, the Main Roads Department has on-line cameras pointing at busy roads. Sit at your computer and watch others struggle in rush hour: traffic cams. You can click on Next Map at the edges and branch out all over. And Main Roads have also researched travel times in peak traffic between some key suburbs and the city. Finally, there are the diligent summaries posted in the Perth Traffic Report. Find out where the traffic is good, bad or ugly. The report also scrolls down for several days and much can be learned by studying it. To mention two things: the times when the tunnel traffic usually creeps and the freeways are jammed ("stop/start from South Street through to South Terrace then slow at the city exits").
Transperth (which run both the buses and trains) have a trip planner. Type in where you are, where you want to get to, and the system computes alternative ways to get there, including bus and train times. Even how far you have to walk to a bus stop or train station.
Once you're confident about the transport, any house near your big X on the map will at least be OK for getting routinely where you want to go.
3. Sort all Perth suburbs by house price
Decide the top price you're willing to pay. It may be a large sum and then other factors will matter more (plenty of room and a view, typically). Or maybe you don't want to pay a lot, even if you could afford more. You basically want a bed and a kitchen nook to make snacks.
Now use this list of suburbs sorted by median price to find which suburbs you can consider. You can print out the list, highlight the suburbs that seem possible, and turn to your map. But keep in mind that full-year median house prices may not match the current market prices. Even if they are close, you should include a generous range of prices around the median. The median is the middle price, and half the houses sold for more than that, half for less. For example, if you're thinking of paying about $500,000, then you might consider suburbs where the median is a fair bit higher and lower than $500,000. Say from $300,000 to $700,000 median price.
4. Rate the schools and universities
Your suburb choice may be heavily swayed by your preferences for schools, or to be near a university. Here is where I recommend you start finding out about all this: Education overview and links.
After you get things narrowed down some, you can turn to this data-rich website run by the Federal Government: My School. Launched on 28 Jan 2010, despite heavy flack from the guns of school administrators and such. They didn't like the idea of information that could lead to league tables for schools. But the government did it anyway.
Finally, if you are game, and already in Perth, you could try this novel and perhaps realistic method: For good schools, forget the net, try the toilets.
5. Avoid repulsive neighbours and bad areas
Who will tell you that you're about to move in next to a horrible neighbour? No one. Your Real Estate Agent won't. You can't ask the owner of the house you are about to buy and expect the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You can't walk up and down the street, knocking on doors, and asking your future neighbours what the others are like.
But there are things that you can do. Stop at different times near the house that you're thinking of buying. And listen. Hear anything? Trumpet practice? Shouts? Power tools in the evening? If you pick enough times of day and days of the week, you can grow confident that noise won't be a problem.
True, you could end up with very quiet neighbours who are unfriendly. Indifferent or quietly unfriendly neighbours make a place less pleasant, but maybe aren't fatal to your enjoyment.
It's a lottery, the neighbours you get. Even in the best suburbs in Perth, you can be made miserable. (To remind yourself what regularly happens, read the book Status Anxiety, by Alain de Botton.) |
发表于 5-9-2011 18:30:23
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发表于 5-9-2011 21:07:43
发表于 6-9-2011 16:35:02
