Teens, Thots & Testimonies: The South Side

Most Victorians would have heard of Werribee, probably thanks to several tourist attractions such as the Werribee Park Open Range Zoo. This suburb is where we have chosen to build our next home.

So why do we decide on this area? Approximately 35km to the southwest of Melbourne CBD, Werribee is not exactly 'prime' real estate in terms of distance to the city. It is however an established and mature town on the outer edge of the Metropolitan. You don't have to travel very far to see farmlands and countryside.

Three months ago when we first began our house search, we never thought that we would end up in Werribee. We were looking around our current area and Point Cook. Then the search expanded to Hoppers Crossing and Truganina when we found Point Cook overpriced. Once we viewed a house in Werribee that was only about 10km from KK's school. It did not advertise its selling price and we were appalled when we heard that the seller was asking for $680K-$700K. It's a beautiful house but it's in Werribee! Well, it's the "South Side", replied the agent. But that's STILL in Werribee, we argued.

And so that was our first introduction to the "south side" of Werribee. We have never heard of "the south side of Werribee". The agent tried to explain that this area of Werribee is more exclusive and in demand because of its convenient access to freeway, shops and good schools. We didn't really buy it then but soon we found that there is a significant difference to the home prices there and the rest of Werribee.

Advertisement for properties on the "south side" will always highlight its 'highly demanded' location as a major plus point. We noticed that many of the Werribee real estate agents we dealt with all lived on the south side. (Even the Sales guy from Simonds who sold us the House & Land package has bought the lot next to ours.) A few of the 'south side' houses we inspected, the owners were just moving to another property also within the south side. We gathered if the real estate agents, the people who know the local area well are all living in that area and the people who lived there don't move out but move within the area, then there must be something good going on there. Another tell-tale sign is the amount of sub-division that is going on there. Many developers are buying up blocks of land there and sub-dividing them to build two or more units on each block.

There is no separate postal code to the "south side". Basically, you have to trawl through all the Werribee listings on the real estate website and look out for words such as "south side location". It is often mentioned in the headlines as it is a major selling point. From what I understand, the "south side" is the area south of the Werribee town center, separated by Princes Highway. Duncans Road runs through it and it is flanked by Princes Freeway (M1) on the other side. In the area is also a reputable secondary state college, Werribee Secondary College. The school is 'zoned', which means that it only takes in students staying within its immediate vicinity.

Even though Werribee is further away from the city, factors such as the convenient access to freeways, town center and a good school gradually changed our mind about the 'south side'. Many of the properties on the 'south side' have been around for a long time but the neighbourhood northeast of Duncans Road is rather newly developed. There are still isolated plots of vacant land and many of the houses there are newer, beautifully built, big houses. Most of the houses are owner-occupied, which is better than those areas where there are a lot of investment properties. (It is generally believed that tenants don't take care of the properties as well and so can affect the value of the neighbourhood.)

We got an exclusive tour of the area that our future house will be last Sat. It turned out that the block we are buying belonged to the mother-in-law of the developer. She is also currently staying at the 'south side'. The developer walked us around the muddy site and pointed out our lot. It feels great to imagine our house sitting there some time in the future. It is a small development and all the lots have been sold sometime in March this year. We are lucky that his MIL now wants to sell it and another earlier buyer backed out.

Some shots of the site of our future home, simply land at the moment.