Hervey Bay Gossip

Yesterday the Courier Mail reported that first home buyers “have fled Queensland’s housing market”. That’s a rather exciting way of describing the simple fact that many first home buyers now feel that they can no longer afford to buy a home.

Of course the first home buyer is basically the person who drives the housing market because people buying in at the low end of the market enable others to sell and move up the chain. So when first home buyers stop buying there are real problems and those problems are even going to be felt here in Hervey Bay.

Back on November 5 the Gossip reported that even the head of Aussie Homeloans was frankly telling people that the boom in the real estate market was over and prices were on the way down (You can read that story here) so eventually home prices will come back into a range that first home buyers will feel they can afford but that isn’t going to happen for a while.

The Courier Mail is running a poll as I write this late on Monday afternoon and more than 82% of the 594 people who expressed an opinion now feel that owning your on home in Australia is becoming unaffordable.

Interesting times lay ahead.

The Esplanade at Urangan may be a good place to avoid for the next few days. Roadworks in front of the new resort are leading to very long delays and on Friday there were times when traffic was stopped both ways for so long that drivers were turning back to find alternate routes.

In case you hadn’t noticed it Hervey Bay is still one of the top four fastest growing regional centres in Australia acording to this year’s State of the Regiuons Report commissioned by the Local Government Association.

The other centres on the list include Byron Bay in New South Wales, Broome in Western Australia and Cairns in north Queensland.

While being included on that list should not come as any real surprise for Hervey Bay residents what may come as a surprise is that the nature of the growth is beginning to change. In the past the towns on the list have been growing because of the sea-changers - older people moving away from the hustle and bustle of a big city to somewhere where the pace of life is slower and the climate is better.

However, the report finds that is now changing and the continued growth in the centres on the list is being fueld by tree-changers - people in search of a cheaper lifestyle and cheaper housing. These people are bringing their capital to the growth centres and setting up business to meet the demands of the sea-changers who are already in place.

Here in Hervey Bay even the casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the real estate boom was becoming more of a whimper. Houses are clearly staying on the market longer, open houses have been seeing very few visitors regardless of the state of the weather and rental properties are remaining vacant too.

Currently a real estate agent with one of the biggest rental books in town has two properties along The Esplanade for rent and both have been available for several weeks. In other parts of town ‘For Rent’ signs are beginning to appear and that was something you rarely saw as recently as six months ago.

Several months ago one agent told your scribes that the market was very flat and rental properties were not being let for anything like the amount that owners had first been told would be a reasonable rental. Even back then the agent we were told that the number of foreclosures was increasing and even tenants were being affected when their landlord was unable to met the house repayments.

And now things are likely to get worse. The Courier Mail today is running several stories on the real estate market in their business section.

In one story the man behind Aussie Homeloans frankly tells people that it is time to get out of the real estate market. He suggests that it is far better to try and sell now than to wait because in the months to come the price of real estate will only decrease.

He also suggests that it will only take a significant global event for prices on beach front real estate to fall by as much as 25%.

In another story several major Queensland real estate principals talk frankly about the collapsing housing market in south east Queensland as more and more work comes to them from receivers.

Unfortunately it’s not something that anyone seems even vaguely optimistic about just at the moment.

If you don’t get down that way very often then let me show you the changing face of Urangan. The image of a sleepy little fishing village known mostly for it’s pier is changing as these photos will show.

The change may not be to everyone’s liking but it certainly is happening.

Here is a photo taken from the pier in May this year.

and a similar view taken today

Hervey Bay City Council is seeking community comment on two planning papers that the Council is currently considering. Those papers are:

The Gatakers Bay and Parweena Park Draft Foreshore Enhancement Plan and

The Review of the Hervey Bay Foreshore Management Plan Discussion Paper

If you wish to peruse the papers you will find them on the Council website at http://www.herveybay.qld.gov.au or at the libraries or Council Offices.

The closing dates for written submissionsare November 4 for the Gatakers Bay Plan and November 25 for the foreshore discussion paper.

There are many people in Hervey Bay that want to see the city develop but can the infrastructure in Hervey Bay really cope with that development?

Despite the current rain we are currently living with water restrictions and there is the very real threat that those restrictions could become much tougher. What are we doing about developing new water supplies?

Are we going to end up like another Queensland tourist town a few years ago and tell tourists to bring their own water?

What about our roads? We are seeing new resorts going up all along the foreshore and yet we have a major tourist road now classed as the worst local government road in Queensland.

The Council is allowing new housing developments to spring up all over town but has adequate planning gone into those developments?

Just take a drive out along main street and look down over the old railway line at the new houses down in the hollow. One former train driver well remembers seeing that hollow flooded on many occasions. What is going to happen when the rains do come back?

Anyone who lives in Kuwangan or Urraween knows the hassles of travelling to Bay Centro. There is no other way than to go out onto Boat Harbour Drive and add to the traffic congestion there. Yet there is just a couple of hundred metres of road needed to run from Main Street but it looks as though it’s never going to happen.

Development is a wonderful thing but sometimes we need to stop and take a deep breath and meet the needs of the people who are already here. I wonder when we’re going to get around to doing that?

This weekend was just too beautiful to spend shut inside in front of the computer so the siren song of the beach and the bay soon lured us away and this time we wandered down to Urangan.

One one side of the shared path was a view like this:

It’s beautiful and idyllic and undoubtedly one of the reasons why so many people have moved to this great city.

Turning around we’re confronted with this view:

It’s ugly and grubby and even when it’s built it’s not going to improve the streetscape.

So Ted and every other elected representative on the Hervey Bay Council use the comments section of this piece to explain why on God’s green earth Hervey Bay needs a mess like this.

And tell us why you’re giving our heritage away to people who don’t live here.

Ever since the days of the villages, strung out along the beach, what has now become The Esplanade has belonged to the people who live here. The Esplanade was the core of each village (perhaps with the exception of Pialba).

As the villages grew into what we have now the importance of The Esplanade grew until today it is the heart of the city. We go there to relax, to celebrate, to have fun, to show our family and friends from other places just how beautiful this place is and now we are giving it away.

The character of The Esplanade is disappearing behind a facade of ugly glass fronted Lego building blocks. The beauty of the beach is being overshadowed by the greed of others and it’s all being given away to people who don’t even live here.

Who gave permission for this to happen? Where we even asked if we wanted to give away our treasures?

We elect people to council to protect us from this and they rubber stamp one development after another. Why are they not listening to us? Why are they giving The Esplanade away to others when we don’t want that to happen?

What will this place be when the beauty and the character of The Esplanade is no more?

Ted will you be proud to stand there and say “I led the council who did this?”

It’s not too late to start listening to what we - the residents of this beautiful town - are saying. Stop the rot! Save The Esplanade and be a true leader and hero of the people.

Ted do you really want to be remembered as the person who turned Hervey Bay into a blight on the coast of Australia?

How much worse can it get when one of the finest houses on The Esplanade

is now up for sale as a development property?

Imported from 8 August 2005

A little birdie has told the Gossip that three blocks of land on the corner of Elizabeth Street and the Esplanade all changed hands last week when they were purchased for an undisclosed sum.

What new development may soon be moving in to replace a well known landmark in that locality?