FOREIGN buyers seem to have shifted some of their heavy focus on the Melbourne market towards New South Wales where one in every five new sales

The latest NAB Quarterly Australian Residential Property Survey, out this morning, saw sentiment rise in all states except Western Australia, pushing the NAB Residential Property Index to 21 points, way above its long term average of 14 points.

Foreign buyers in the New South Wales market were now at similar levels to Victoria, the data found,

Around 5 per cent of foreign buyers were in the $5 million plus market, 41 per cent spending between $500,000 and a million dollars, while just under one in three (30 per cent) were buying properties for less than $500,000.

NAB group chief economist Alan Oster said foreign buyers were more active in new housing markets, making up 15.6 per cent of demand nationally.

“There was however a notable shift in activity by location with the share of foreign buyers in NSW rising to a new high of 21 per cent and falling to 20.7 per cent in Victoria (from 33 per cent in Q4 2014)” he said.

Mr Oster said foreign purchasers were far less active in established housing markets, making up 7.5 per cent of national demand in the first quarter this year - compared 8.7 per cent in Q4 14).

Apartments continued to be the purchase of choice for offshore purchasers (53 per cent of all foreign purchases nationally), followed by houses (30 per cent) and 17 per cent for redevelopment.

Nationally NSW topped sentiment, Mr Oster said, followed by Victoria and Queensland.

He found Queensland and Victoria were now the most optimistic in the next one to two years, with WA the most pessimistic.

“Nationally, prices are tipped to grow 2.1 per cent in the next 12 months, with expectations up in NSW (3.3 per cent) and Queensland (3.3 per cent)

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Summer Hill Real Estate - Ralf Baumann

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Contact Ralf Baumann from Summer Hill Real Estate for a free market appraisal today! 

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Investors can speed up the process by being savvy with the latest technology and online advice.

Investors can speed up the process by being savvy with the latest technology and online advice.

 Searching for property in Summer Hill? 

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Summer Hill tips;

• Recognising what you can afford;
• Narrowing down to the right area;
• What type of property is ideal for your needs;
• Getting the best rate on your loan;
• The hotspots and what suburbs to avoid;
• How to use technology at the open for inspection;
• How to communicate with agents and get the best agent for you.

Summer Hill Real Estate - Streets to keep an eye out for in 2015

Summer Hill Hot Spot Streets by Paul Salsano 

Paul Salsano the Director of Summer Hill Real Estate recommends the following streets that he believes would somewhat have a significant capital growth presence within the next 3 years. 

Paul believes the suburb of Summer Hill has a substantial gain as the sister suburbs such as Lewisham and Canterbury have increased in construction within the past 2 years. 
Therefore, homes within these below streets Paul believes would hold a significant interest


Henson Street, Summer Hill
Kensington Rd, Summer Hill
Kensington Rd, Summer Hill
Old Canterbury Rd, Summer Hill
Carlton Crescent, Summer Hill
Nowranie Street, Summer Hill
Smith Street, Summer Hill
Carlton Crescent, Summer Hill
Old Canterbury Rd, Summer Hill
Gower Street, Summer Hill
Carlton Crs, Summer Hill
 Carlton Crs, Summer Hill
 Smith Street, Summer Hill

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Summer Hill property management team is about keeping your property up to date with rental assessments, property maintenance and values to ensure that your asset is being managed with agents passion. 

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School results affect Summer Hill property market

It was with a sense of irony our family read recent consternation over the problematic NAPLAN question ("NAPLAN overhaul after task criticism", August 19).

My son attends Summer Hill Public School, a school which excels at NAPLAN, according to the MySchool website, which allows comparison of school NAPLAN results. This website didn't exist when we moved to Summer Hill in 2003, but it's made the school a magnet for aspirational parents, indirectly inflating property prices within the catchment.

Summer Hill locals know the results mean little because it's impossible to distinguish the true NAPLAN results of local children in years 5 and 6 from the large proportion of those in the school's opportunity classes.

Skewed as they may be, these high NAPLAN results helped price us out of the local real estate market. In 2013, we moved to a neighbouring suburb. Our son continued attending Summer Hill Public, and we planned to enrol our daughter in kindergarten next year.

But it is not to be. This year the school cut back out-of-area sibling enrolments, citing overcrowding. We wrote letters to the sympathetic local member and the minister. 

A bureaucratic response came from the Department of Education: nothing could be done; if we didn't want to split our family, we should consider moving our children to another school.

Our son decided to rally the student representative council and appeal to the school principal. He analysed the issue and discussed possible solutions. Could staggered lunchtimes help to reduce the number of the kids on the playground at any one time?

Within a week, this same child recounted the experience of his first Year 3 NAPLAN test. Beaming, he told us how he was asked to write on the topic of "a rule or law that needs to change" and wasted no time in presenting his case on the school's enrolment policy. While most of the class laboured over the question, he said he couldn't write fast enough.

The irony of the outcry over the "faulty question" is not lost on our 8-year-old son. If our child turns out to be an aberration and performs well on the NAPLAN, it may be his parting gift to a school whose results are already skewed, and continue to skew the local property market and have wider social effects.

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Summer Hill History - Summer Hill our local area

Summer Hill

Summer Hill is located 8 kilometres west of the Sydney Central Business District.  Just 15 minutes from the city Summer Hill has an enviable range of shopping and dining options, all contained within a unique village atmosphere. 

The boundaries of Summer Hill are defined by Parramatta Road and Liverpool Road to the north, the rear of the properties on the west side of Prospect Road (with a detour around Trinity Grammar School) to the West, Old Canterbury Road to the south, and the north-south goods railway line to the east. North of Summer Hill is the suburb of Haberfield, to the east is Lewisham, to the south is Dulwich Hill, and to the west is Ashfield
Summer Hill features a mix of federation era houses, as well as medium density apartment blocks near the Summer Hill railway station. Local independent business people run most of the shops, with the main shopping area known as the Summer Hill Village. 

Summer Hill is a suburb rich in heritage. More than one hundred properties are heritage listed, and the strong feelings of some residents of the suburb towards protecting the local architecture has seen the introduction of a heritage review, which is expected to add more properties to the heritage register. 

Despite formerly being working class, Summer Hill and many of the surrounding suburbs have gradually undergone gentrification over recent years. Culturally, Summer Hill is a blend of medium-density European Sydney suburbia, with Italian influences (which are most evident in Leichhardt to the East and Haberfield to the North), Eastern influences (which are most strongly evident in Ashfield to the West), and smaller influences from many other cultures. 

For detailed demographic information please visit Council’s online Community Profile

Commercial area

Summer Hill's shopping precinct is centered around a small plaza with good pedestrian access, and is surrounded by cafés and restaurants along Lackey and Smith Streets. The suburb is very small by Australian standards, having a population of just over 6000, in an area of 1.1 km². It features some fine examples of architecture from the 19th and early 20th century. 

The Summer Hill flour mill was built circa 1922, utilising the north-south goods railway line that was constructed during World War 1. The silos were added from the 1950s onwards. The flour mill has been owned by various companies, including Mungo Scott, and Goodman Fielder, and then Allied Mills. In October 2007, the mills were sold to a developer, EG Funds Management, who plans to redevelop the mill site into a residential and commercial precinct. 

For more information on commerce visit the Summer Hill Village Business Association website (www.summerhillvillage.net.au) or AshfieldBusiness.com.au.or www.summerhill-realestate.com.au

History

Ashfield & District Historical Society produced a publication on Summer Hill (1999) - history and architecture of the suburb, A4, 244 pp, illus that is available for $20-00 - ($27-50 posted). Visit their website for further details.

Aboriginal Culture

Prior to the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson in 1788, the area of land we now know as Summer Hill, and surrounding areas, was the home of the Wangal and Cadigal Aboriginal peoples. What is now called the Hawthorne Canal (and was originally the Long Cove Creek) appears to have marked the boundary between the Cadigal and Wangal aboriginal group lands. Today there is a small park in Summer Hill, called Cadigal Reserve, located at 1-4 Grosvenor Crescent. A bronze plaque placed by Ashfield Council names the reserve after the Cadigal (Eora) group of Koori people. Iron Cove and the mangrove-lined estuaries of the Long Cove and Iron Cove Creeks would have provided a good source of fish and molluscs, the most common food of the coastal tribes in the Sydney basin. 

In the early days of the colony, the stretch of land between Iron Cove and the Cook's River was known as the Kangaroo Ground. The use of this name suggests that kangaroos were then common in this area, and therefore that the country was probably fairly open (the type of terrain favoured by Kangaroos); and secondly, that kangaroos may have formed a significant part of the aboriginal diet. 

No record is known to exist relating to the demise of the aboriginal population from the district. It seems likely that the well-documented outbreak of smallpox among local Aboriginal People in early 1789 had a major impact. Governor Phillip not only recorded that half of the local aboriginal population was estimated to have died from the disease, but he also noted that the aboriginal people always "retired from where the diseases appeared" as well.

European Settlement

The first white property ownership in the area that would later become Summer Hill was in 1794, with a grant for a farm to Henry Kable, a former convict and jailor. The land in the eastern corner of Summer Hill was an additional grant of 30 acres (120,000 m²) made to Henry Kable in 1804. A little later in the century this eastern corner would become part of the estate of James Underwood. Underwood died in 1844 and left a will so complicated that it required special legislation before it could be subdivided. 

The earliest known use of the name "Summer Hill" was in 1876, for a land subdivision adjacent to the present-day St Andrews church. The name Summer Hill is thought to be a name chosen by the land sub-divider, presumably based on an attachment for England. Local historians regard the suggestion that the name is a derivation of "Sunning Hill" as a dubious story which has no substance. 

Summer Hill's largest mansion, Carleton, was built in the early 1880s on Liverpool Road for Charles Carleton Skarrat. The suburb boomed with the opening of the railway station in 1879, and the subdivisions of much of the surrounding area followed. Between 1880 and 1910, the area became an upper-class suburb, and was a popular choice for city-types who worked in banking and insurance. Subdivision of gardens for housing continued in the 1920s and 1930s, and socioeconomically the suburb changed as some of the wealthier inhabitants moved to the North Shore. Demolition of most of the surviving mansions occurred in the 1970s to allow erection of home units, especially within walking distance of the railway station. 

Sources: Summer Hill Village Business Association and Wikipedia