19 February 2021

Should I buy in Belconnen or elsewhere?

2 April 2011 | tanielle

I’m moving to Canberra and am trying to decide where to buy/rent. I’ve noticed that rent is pretty high so am leaning towards buying probably a townhouse or small house with 2-3 bedrooms.

I was trying to research decent suburbs but a lot of information on the net is old and so may be outdated. One suburb that seemed ok in terms of affordability without being too far from things was Belconnen itself, although I have read that surrounding suburbs are not necessarily the best.

Would anyone be able to offer me advice/opinions on Belconnen town centre/suburb and whether it is ok?

Alternatively, are there any other suburbs that are recommended or not recommended?

We are not looking to buy in the most prestigious suburb but also don’t want to buy in the worst – just something that is decent 🙂 Any help would be really appreciated as I just don’t know Canberra well at all.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

Still looking for more information on Belconnen? Check out our recently updated article on what it’s like to live in Belconnen.

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tanielle11:26 pm 05 Apr 11

Hi all! Thanks so much for all the opinions/views/advice/wisdom 🙂 I actually feel a lot more relieved now. I have previously read a lot of people saying certain suburbs were bad, high crime etc and I was concerned about having small children in such areas. I had tried asking a few friends but they are all new to the area or only know the area they live in so I really appreciate everyone’s advice, and feel relieved now to hear that it’s more about the street than the suburb and that there are lots of good places. We are going to try to get to Canberra as soon as we can to check it out and just have a drive around (last time we visited, we had no idea we would end up moving there!). Also now thinking of renting, reaching the same conclusions as some of you have suggested about getting used to the area and seeing what we like first. Thanks so much for all your help. Not knowing Canberra well, I wasn’t sure if it was like say Sydney where the suburbs tend to have a definite vibe with some being clearly much safer than others. 🙂

shadow boxer10:46 am 05 Apr 11

Yeh o.k. haters gunna hate I guess.

If you want to draw conclusions while wizzing past in your car it’s your loss.

FD1010:08 am 05 Apr 11

shadow boxer said :

It is interesting that Canberra people would describe a place as having no soul based on a drive through

Flogging a dead horse eh? If a place is souless when driving through, imagine how bad it is when out of a car… It was the implication which was important. But I don’t expect you to understand that, considering you think having a petrol station makes a suburb good, and the magnititude of your delusions are clear when you refer to Nicholls’ “wide streets” (google would disagree: http://tinyurl.com/3bv4mrw).

If you think nothing has changed in Gungahlin in the last 11 years (“Bagging Gungahlin is so last century” would imply that, or should I point out I’m not “bagging the place out” for no reason, 11 years ago it was a completely different place) then perhaps you need to remind yourself of photos such as this: http://the-riotact.com/images-of-canberra-crace-a-place-like-no-other/23323
Actually, screw driving past it in a car, I can tell from those photos such as this that the place has no soul.

georgesgenitals8:47 am 05 Apr 11

shadow boxer said :

Yeh, I like Weston Creek and agree on the inner north even though I grew up there.

It is interesting that Canberra people would describe a place as having no soul based on a drive through, I hate it when sydney people do that to Canberra in general.

Back on topic Nicholls is clearly in Canberra’s top three suburbs.

Wide streets, big gardens, good mix of town houses and large quality houses, pool, gym, golf course with kangaroos, taverns, Ginniderra fair, petrol station, good views, no riff raff.

Easy acces to

Hall markets, EPIC, Racecourse, Canberra stadium, the universities, civic (as long as its not 7:45 but that effects everyone and will get better when that frigging road is finally opened) and the G which I much prefer to the horrendous Belco mall and town centre.

Bagging Gungahlin is so last century…….

+ 1.

Community is what you make it. And you can find it anywhere.

shadow boxer8:10 am 05 Apr 11

Yeh, I like Weston Creek and agree on the inner north even though I grew up there.

It is interesting that Canberra people would describe a place as having no soul based on a drive through, I hate it when sydney people do that to Canberra in general.

Back on topic Nicholls is clearly in Canberra’s top three suburbs.

Wide streets, big gardens, good mix of town houses and large quality houses, pool, gym, golf course with kangaroos, taverns, Ginniderra fair, petrol station, good views, no riff raff.

Easy acces to

Hall markets, EPIC, Racecourse, Canberra stadium, the universities, civic (as long as its not 7:45 but that effects everyone and will get better when that frigging road is finally opened) and the G which I much prefer to the horrendous Belco mall and town centre.

Bagging Gungahlin is so last century…….

georgesgenitals6:35 am 05 Apr 11

Personally I think the inner north is overrated, but as I said previously there are good streets scattered all through. Don’t discount the south side, lots of it are very nice, and the infrastructure is generally good. Weston Creek is also something of a secret.

Sproogle7710:15 pm 04 Apr 11

AcidRose said :

Generally, the further from Civic (what passes for a ‘city’ in this big country town), the more expensive –is a whole lot of crock too!!! It’s actually..the CLOSER to the city is more expensive ..doh!!! .

Oops, typo by me. Should have typed closer – doh!!!

niknak8:09 pm 04 Apr 11

Aranda could tempt us out of the Inner North but otherwise, Belco doesn’t hold much appeal. Perhaps if we had kids we’d think differently.

beejay767:51 pm 04 Apr 11

FD10 said :

No, I mean small blocks in Gungahlin like this:

http://www.allhomes.com.au/ah/act/sale-residential/45-baratta-street-crace-canberra/1316786236411

In all fairness, yes the 450m2 block was the smallest I found. But I only checked three different houses. Two were 450m2, one was 536m2. Compared to three random houses in Aranda, which were 823.6m2, 895m2 and 901.5m2

But Gungahlin is real big, right?

There *may* be some advantages to sterile-Gungahlin (I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt), but please don’t try to argue that it has large block sizes. That is just insulting everyone reading.

No, there’s much smaller than that. My block is 345m2, and it’s not the smallest. Not by a damn sight. Our neighbours are on 250m2.

On the up side, the crime rate is really low here – the lowest in Canberra from what I can tell. It’s affordable. Waaaaay more affordable than the inner north or inner south (sorry, don’t know anything about further down south). So: safe, cheap, and close to the city. For example Franklin (circa 10km) is the same distance from Civic as Red Hill (also 10km). But yes, the blocks are teensy.

Jethro7:23 pm 04 Apr 11

Gungahlin Al said :

I agree that new is a better option – sidesteps the crappy standard of housing, design and energy efficient that prevails in most of the old housing stock. With good housing design in Canberra, you will be like “Winter? What winter?” and your biggest problem will be remembering to grab a jacket when you leave the house. So get a bare block with good east-west orientation, preferably with the private open space to the north rather than the street to the north, or if you can afford it, a total crap house in a nice area and bulldoze the house.

I dispute the advice against Harrison (or parts of it anyway) based on just lack of broadband. We have this little thing called NBN coming to Gungahlin real soon remember. And the other issues that plague some parts of Gungahlin are not present in the Well Station parts of Harrison – the streets are reasonably sized, ditto most of the blocks, and the parks are good. And it is very close to the city. Traffic? Sure it is a pain – if you insist on driving. Ride a bike – ceases to be an issue.

The thing Tanielle needs to remember is that most people in Canberra look on a drive to Queanbeyan as an interstate trip requiring a packed lunch and even consider packing an emergency overnight bag. Others will happily commute every day from the far south of Gordon etc (nicknamed “North Cooma” by some) but try to say that Gungahlin is just as far, when it is really about as far from Civic as Woden.

Perception and reality in Canberra are not always the same thing. See for yourself.

True about perception and reality. For example, the perception that new is better is bollocks. New housing in the outer suburbs of Belconnen and in Gunghalin is invariably on minute blocks of land in suburbs that are absolutely soulless. Not so much as a tree to relieve the view of grey and brown concrete. Sure you get a newer home, but they are pretty poor quality. I find walking through West Macgregor to be quite depressing. Some of those ‘homes’ look like grey bomb shelters.

Personally, I would be looking for an established home in an established suburb. If you can only afford to live in the outer suburbs look at the established suburbs like Holt or Latham over West Macgregor. You can get a decent townhouse in Holt (right near Kippax shops and a major bus stop) for close to what you would pay for a place in West Macgregor. Some people will say that these suburbs have a bad reputation, but that is by Canberra standards. I have heard (but don’t quote me) that the poorest suburb in Canberra still has an average income higher than the average income in Australia.

Likewise, the outer suburbs of Belco, while further from the city than Gunghalin is, are still a quicker commute due to the terrible infrastructure in Gunghalin. They have plonked 40 or 50 thousand people there in the past decade or so but not supported that growth with things like decent roads. A commute from outer Belco to Civic will take 20-25 minutes at peak hour.

Buying a house is a big decision. I spent about a year looking at homes and locations throughout Canberra before deciding on a location to buy in and a type of home that I wanted to buy. My recommendation would be to have a good look and see what suits you and what you like before taking the plunge.

Gungahlin Al11:01 am 04 Apr 11

wildturkeycanoe said :

If you are concerned at the cost of renting here, that means you probably aren’t going to be able to afford a large mortgage either. If you are looking for “affordable” 2-3 beds, small block/townhouse, West Macgregor’s new estate is perfect. Gungahlin’s tiny blocks are sold out if they are cheap and all established houses throughout A.C.T are overpriced. Go new, no hassles and your neighbors will all be in similar financial status [Don’t see too many Centrelink recipients lining up for $400k home loans].

This and #23 are some of the more balanced and valuable advice here. Yes EVERYTHING in Canberra is expensive – rent, land, houses, builders, dentists, doctors, brickies, you name it. (Exacerbated by the government here keeping land supply on a drip feed to drive up demand and prices – slowly rectifying now but still a few years off before we have land “sitting on the shelf”.) The government wages here are good, so everyone else wants a chunk of it.

I agree that new is a better option – sidesteps the crappy standard of housing, design and energy efficient that prevails in most of the old housing stock. With good housing design in Canberra, you will be like “Winter? What winter?” and your biggest problem will be remembering to grab a jacket when you leave the house. So get a bare block with good east-west orientation, preferably with the private open space to the north rather than the street to the north, or if you can afford it, a total crap house in a nice area and bulldoze the house.

I dispute the advice against Harrison (or parts of it anyway) based on just lack of broadband. We have this little thing called NBN coming to Gungahlin real soon remember. And the other issues that plague some parts of Gungahlin are not present in the Well Station parts of Harrison – the streets are reasonably sized, ditto most of the blocks, and the parks are good. And it is very close to the city. Traffic? Sure it is a pain – if you insist on driving. Ride a bike – ceases to be an issue.

The thing Tanielle needs to remember is that most people in Canberra look on a drive to Queanbeyan as an interstate trip requiring a packed lunch and even consider packing an emergency overnight bag. Others will happily commute every day from the far south of Gordon etc (nicknamed “North Cooma” by some) but try to say that Gungahlin is just as far, when it is really about as far from Civic as Woden.

Perception and reality in Canberra are not always the same thing. See for yourself.

Sproogle7711:53 am 03 Apr 11

It will all depend a bit on how much opportunity you have to physically check out the surrounding areas before buying (as opposed to doing most of your searching through the internet, on allhomes or whatever). If you can, cruise around the surrounding areas and see what you think. There are pockets of dodgy areas, but probably more so in terms of how they look than any real risks from living there. If you find lots of unkempt looking properties with half dismantled cars out the front in neighbouring streets, probably best to look elsewhere. The dodgy pockets are pretty small (generally, go a few streets away and things change a lot) and will tend to affect resale value more so than actually being bad places to live (for the most part). Many of the big differences in property price are artificial, as the bad is generally not that bad. I live in one of the suburbs people will warn you about. There are ugly bits and you see plenty of people at the local shops whose lives clearly aren’t going that well, but they are harmless for the most part. They do burnouts in the streets sometimes and occasionally make too much noise, but tend not to stab anyone. The advantage of being in a lesser regarded suburb is that the blocks of land are big (important for my family), the housing is cheap and there is heaps of green space around. Easy access to many amenities as well.

Have a good look at the surrounding property market – internet real estate sites are good for this. If there are similar looking properties in similar condition in the same area but with quite different prices, the local neighbourhood will typically explain this. Canberra has always developed entire suburbs all at once so, aside from major renovations or rebuilds in the meantime, the architecture will be relatively similar across a whole suburb. Blocks of land have generally gotten smaller over time, so those in Gungahlin are mostly small (sometimes ridiculously so). Same for the newer bits at the south of Tuggeranong and Gungahlin, outer Belconnen and outer Tuggeranong are quite a long way from Civic, if that’s where you will be working (though Canberrans have a funny view of distances compared with those from larger cities – I have experienced the 20 or 25 minute drives being described as an ‘enormous’ distance, with attitudes suggesting something more akin to the distance between Melbourne and Sydney).

In the end, budget will be the biggest determining factor. Generally, the further from Civic (what passes for a ‘city’ in this big country town), the more expensive – but age of properties and people’s prejudices still factor in. Everyone will tell you about suburbs to avoid, though there are no entirely bad suburbs. Others will tell about the best suburbs, but some are hideously overpriced.

Just try to find the best you can in your price range, taking into account surrounding areas and amenities, the type of local environment that suits your lifestyle, needs and wants and travel routes – bearing in mind that traffic can be a hassle along certain routes (not by Sydney or Melbourne standards, but potentially painful all the same). Obviously I don’t know your situation, but if you have children or are planning to, proximity to schools, play areas and so on might be important.

Renting is far from ideal and expensive, but if you are planning to stay for quite a few years (and many people stay here for a lot longer than they ever expected to) it might be worth doing for 12 months while you get a feel for what works for you.

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