Tony Collidge, President of the REIT and Simon McGrath of Abel McGrath discuss what local facilities can bring benefit and detriment to home value.

There are many local facilities and amenities that are desirable to live in close proximity to, but also some that can bring detriment to your home value.

The experts have weighed in on all there is to look out for when purchasing a home.

Tony Collidge, President of the REIT, said the most important thing is closeness to services such as schools and shopping.

“It will certainly impact the value of property and retain value,” Mr Collidge told WILLIAMS MEDIA.

“People will also pay higher rent to live in close proximity to transport, schools and retail.”

He said it’s vital to research suburbs, and even areas within suburbs.

While a suburb in general may be desirable, there can be parts of it that are not.

“The biggest complaints we get are from mainland buyers looking for investment properties who haven’t done their research on suburbs they bought in.

“Higher returning or yielding suburbs are also ones with the most amount of risk.

“Often lower socio economic areas with ex housing have cheaper homes which can get a lot higher rent, but turnover is much higher.

Mr Collidge said vacancy rates and arrears are higher due to the marketplace you are dealing with.

Simon McGrath of Abel McGrath told WILLIAMS MEDIA people can be divided about living near certain facilities.

“Hospitals can be good or bad. I’ve had people in their 70s from the country, come to the city specifically wanting to be close to a hospital.

“I’ve had other clients move away from hospitals as they are sick of hearing ambulance sirens at night.”

He said people are also divided in opinion about living close to railways.

“Some people want to get rid of the car and be close to a rail system, and for other people it has no appeal whatsoever.

“However, access to rail systems are becoming more important as time goes by with fuel costs and reliability on cars diminishing.”

Mr McGrath said Asians, in particular Chinese, won’t live anywhere near a cemetery.

“Every Asian client I know will choose not to live near a cemetery.

“I sold a property last year which was 200 metres away and it was too close.

“If you live near a cemetery you should be very concerned about resale value as the market you sell to will be diminished.”

Properties under flight paths can also be severely affected.

“There are beautiful properties in Perth in Bayswater and Bassendean near the river, but some are under the flight path approaching Perth airport.

Some cities such as Sydney have a flying curfew after certain hours, but not everywhere.

Source: https://www.therealestateconversation.com.au/2018/08/23/local-facilities-which-can-influence-your-homes-value/1534983422