Bad Rap, but close to Newcastle, Beaches and Lake!

Windale, a suburb of Newcastle, is portrayed as one of the most disadvantaged communities in NSW. It has some of the highest rates of unemployment, substance abuse and social housing in New South Wales but much of the social housing has already been sold to investors and first home owners and at VERY cheap prices!

Would you kick yourself if you didn’t invest in a property in one of the closest suburbs to Newcastle at these prices?

Windale is just 15 kilometres from the Newcastle CBD and about four kilometres from Charlestown, the largest business centre in the Lake Macquarie area. And it’s still close to the beaches. I took a walk around recently and it’s not that different to most other suburbs in Newcastle.

Windale is very close to Bennetts Green and one of the largest Harvey Normal Stores in Australia – Does Gerry know something we don’t?

What about Redfern?

Although a 2015 report compared Windale with Claymore, a purpose-built housing commission estate 54 kilometres south west of the Sydney CBD, where 90 percent of property is owned by Housing NSW, Windale is not like that at all.

In fact, it’s more like Redfern was twenty years ago. Redfern still has its social problems, but following a period of gentrification, property in the area has become some of Sydney’s most expensive (the median house price is $1.7 million). In fact, a notorious “squatters” terrace, measuring just 117sqm, recently fetched $1.1 million at auction last December. (In 1991, it was sold for $143,000.)

Is gentrification on the way for Windale?

Redfern went from being an undesirable suburb of urban decay to one of the city’s most exclusive addresses once it became too expensive to live in more salubrious areas, such as Potts Point, Paddington and Pyrmont. (Even Potts Point’s transformation into an exclusive address would have been scoffed at once given it’s right next door to Kings Cross.)

With property prices in areas of Newcastle, like Adamstown, Merewether and Charlestown, nearly as expensive as Sydney’s, buyers, investors and renters have gone to inner ring suburbs for affordable housing. That’s seen an influx of middle class residents moving to areas, like Windale, Edgeworth and Warners Bay. The only way is up!

To learn more about investing in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie property markets, our property investment training course will teach you all about investing in the regional NSW property market. Or you can contact our team to find out how we can help you find the right investment property or you. For more information, visit our website.