Hervey Bay Gossip

For some years now Hervey Bay has been one of the leading centres in Australia for population growth. Retirees have been coming here in droves to take advantage of the climate and the lifestyle.

Their migration has been financed by the sale of their homes in the major capitals, often at prices that were unimaginable when they first purchased those homes.

However that flood of people coming here may soon begin to wane according to new research by BIS Shrapnel. As the metropolitan property market begins to struggle more and more people are either keeping their homes or choosing to sell and move to less popular destinations.

The property market could fall by up to 10% over the next year and some economists suggest that it could go even lower. In the past such fluctuations have not impacted so heavily on regional growth centres like Hervey Bay but in recent years property prices here have risen to the point where prices are on a par with cities and so there is little financial gain in moving.

While that is bad news for Hervey Bay some inland areas are becoming more attractive and Toowoomba has recorded increasing residential construction figures over the last few months.

A prominent Queensland property developer has outlined his plans to build a terminal for cruise ships off Hervey Bay.

The plans … or concept … as the developer likes to call them also involve a super yacht marina that would see a major expansion of Boat Harbour.

I wonder if we really want Boat Harbour expanded and whether Fraser Island could really cope with even more tourists.?

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.

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

Your scribe and his better half had to take a trip to Brisbane and back yesterday - about 600 kms in 9 hours. There was quite a lot of traffic on the road but no one was acting the fool so we had a rather safe trip … once we got out of the Bay.

It’s sad to say that the most hazardous part of the trip was right here in Hervey Bay and it wasn’t any motorist who caused the problem but two traffic control people down on the Esplanade at Urangan.

We were following a large mobile crane down Elizabeth Street and onto the Esplanade - no problems there, the crane driver obviously had his wits about him and was driving with all due caution and care. He arrived at the building site where he was to work and needed to reverse onto the site.

Again there was no problem - we were the first car behind him and we gave him plenty of room and we waited for him. There was no oncoming traffic and so he was prepared to reverse onto the site and was in the process of doing so when suddenly two traffic controllers came running from the site to take control of the situation.

And from there things just got farcical. Was the crane to go? No … we were signalled on … then the traffic coming the other way got the go ahead before we had a chance to move … then everybody had to stop while the traffic controllers got their act together. And then the whole silly scene started all over again.

Fortunately one of the site workers who had a few more brain cells than the traffic controllers marched onto the road and stopped the crane, stopped the traffic and stopped the controllers and then injected some common sense into the situation.

Sometimes I seriously wonder about some of those traffic controllers - in that situation they were about as much use as a hip pocket in singlet.

Who knows how quickly the situation might have been resolved and how few cars might have been delayed if they hadn’t been there.

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 25 May 2005

Trouble continues to brew as more and more people become concerned about the possibility that Hervey Bay will soon begin to resemble the Gold Coast as high rise buildings spring up along the water front.

A recent meeting of concerned citizens failed to dispel the disquiet. Few people who attended the meeting actually heard any of the Council’s arguments because the Council organisers failed to provide any form of public address system.

This is not something that is likely to just fade away as there is a real concern among residents that the beauty and special appeal of Hervey Bay will be lost as developers are allowed to build taller and taller buildings.

A further public meeting was held last night, this time organised by concerned citizens, after unconfirmed reports began to surface that a Sydney developer wants to build a 12 storey block in Urangan.

The Council has denied that plans for such a building have been submitted to Council but locals are now becoming worried and want answers.

One of the reasons residents are worried about future high rise developments in town. This piece of work is currently under construction on The Esplanade at Scarness and you can see how it dwarfs adjoining buildings.