kevinw1

Yes. This is some part of Heidelberg West is rundown. Yes. You will come across unpleasant people on the street. Yes. It is not ideal for owner occupier to purchase the first home. And Yes, a lot of home owner and agents are all saying Heidelberg West is improving and you need to be aware of what they say. But does that mean, it is still a suburb you need to stay away from? Definitely no. Just take a brief look at census data, public renting number dropped from 1100 in 1991 to 800 in 2011. The selling momentum slowed during 2006 - 2011, I suppose that was mainly due to the financial crisis and government does not wish to dump their stock at bottom level price. Currently I feel government accelerated sales process a little bit. 2016 census will be very important to see what government had done in the past five years. And government will use the proceeds to rebuilt some of the dilapidated properties anyway. Considering increasing private developers' interest in this area. Just imaging ten years from now, what heidelberg west will look like and how its median price will be compared to median house price of Melbourne. ( Currently still has a 10- 15% discount, but in a long run, I think it will have 10-20% premium over Melbourne median price.)