## property bubble ## beware..!!!!, page-31

I have recently purchased a smaller house. The current one has seven bedrooms and is a bit too big for two people now that my kids have left home.
I did some intensive house hunting, and have been monitoring prices over the last 18 months.
However, I did notice some unusual things when viewing properties in the last few months.

It was a bit like the dot con boom all over again. The West Australian regularly gives a list of top performing suburbs, although I am not sure just how the figures are worked out. Try and buy a house in many of those suburbs and you will find that houses open for inspection are full of prospective buyers. Houses tend to be low quality, requiring extensive maintenance or total demolition. Yet, cross the road to a suburb not on the top list and you will notice a big contrast. There you can find quality houses at non inflated prices, often much newer, and there is no one looking through them except yourself. Prices are about 10% less.
I am talking about some of Perth's southern suburbs like Ardross, Mt Pleasant, Alfred Cove, Melville, Bicton and Attadale as the dot con ones. Attadale still has some value left, although lots of knock-down jobs are making big money. Applecross is too intensively developed for me. Nearby suburbs, nearer Leech Highway are every bit as desirable, but do not seem to have the dot con status. Is it the same in other states?

There is a bubble going on right now. It will burst, but as a French philospoher said. "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."