Over the past few years, we have seen the increased popularity and demand in Melbourne’s  Western suburbs. It seems we aren’t the only ones that that see the potential this untapped area has and believe that the Western suburbs are going to be Melbourne’s next hot spot –think Carlton, Fitzroy or Port Melbourne of 15 years ago.

With that in mind, property investors should definitely start looking to the Western suburbs for high growth investment opportunities.

Not convinced yet? Below are excerpts of two interesting articles on Footscray and living in the west that were published in The Age’s December 2011 issue of The Melbourne Magazine. 

West Side Story by Michelle Griffin:

In the endless battle for boasting rights between suburbs north and south of the Yarra, the west has often been overlooked. But the study of Melbourne suburbs… could tilt the debate on its axis: it turns out the west is home to many of Melbourne’s most improved neighbourhoods. It may be time we started thinking of this city not as divided north and south by the Yarra, but divided east and west by the winding Maribyrnong.

Let’s start with Footscray, a civic hub that has spent the past decade shaking off its Romper Stomper reputation as one of the city’s toughest suburbs. On the latest liveability rankings, it sits just outside the top 10 per cent of Melbourne’s highest-ranked suburbs, at number 37. What’s remarkable is that old Foot-scary now outranks several suburbs that acquired earlier real-estate cachet, including St Kilda, Williamstown and even Camberwell. It’s also miles ahead of its obvious hipster rival, Brunswick, way back at number 90.

Footscray’s neighbouring villages have all done well, too. Arty, eco-conscious Footscray West, ranked at 55, is considered more “liveable” than either North Melbourne or Caulfield (56 and 57).

Over the past decade, our western suburbs have begun to play the same role that multifaceted Brooklyn does in New York: a grittier, wittier, rival metropolis. The Big West Festival, wrapping up in November, is no community fiesta but a sprawling multi-culti biennale that talks up the inner west as Melbourne’s true artistic heartland. This is where the film industry lives, where the artists’ studios are, where the plays debut, where the music morphs in hybrids of African, Asian and electronic forms.

This artistic renaissance is harnessed to the west’s working-class sensibility, as defined by its battling footy club, neon signs and musty 19^th-century street names. Each wave of migrants, from the Italians to the Vietnamese to the Africans and Indians, have remade the neighbourhoods. Now the latest wave of newcomers will make their mark. But the largest group of new residents won’t bring a new language: 2812 English-only speakers arrived between 2001 and 2006. They are families with young children; double-income professional couples; and singles, arriving either as professionals or students.

You can read the changing fortunes of the inner west by walking down Eleanor Street. This suburban drag is technically in Footscray, but most residents think it’s West Footscray. They shop in Barkly Street village, commute from West Footscray Station and send their children to West Footscray schools where, in the words of one mother, “the prep mums are getting progressively groovier”.

Most of the houses on Eleanor Street are pretty double-fronted Edwardians with well-tended verandahs and big backyards, selling for more than $700,000 – a figure many easternites might find shocking. It’s also home to several development opportunities. Plans for 11 three-storey townhouses on the site of a nursing home have just been approved, despite a local campaign to stop it.

By the end of 2011, Maribyrnong will have 6333 new dwellings, well on the way to the 15,800 new homes the council thinks the area needs in the next 20 years. While the City of Maribyrnong is pro-development, the state’s Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, is even more gung-ho, approving a 25-storey tower on a former car yard near the river.

The west is still Melbourne’s industrial heart – with the benefits that brings for local residents (jobs) and the downsides (trucks, chimneys, noise) but even that’s changing: many of the area’s newest housing estates are on former industrial sites. Willow Park in Maidstone was once the factory belt. The Binks Ford site next to Footscray Railway Station is earmarked for $500 million worth of shops and residences. At the bottom of Eleanor Street, across Barkly Street, the old Olympic tyre factory next to Whitten Oval is being transformed into Banbury Village. The graffiti-bombed concrete has been peeled off the curved brick facade of the main office, which dates back to 1939.

Kathy Henry moved into the estate a year ago, tired of commuting to the Docklands from Romsey, near Macedon. “I met one of the older residents who said (our street) used to be houses for factory workers before (the factory) expanded,” she says.

“He said it was really nice to see it taken back.” Local artist Mary Long has decided she’s all for a high-density neighbourhood. “Bring it on,” she says. She’s glad the shuttered industrial site she used to walk past at night will now be full of townhouses. “It was quite a desolate stretch.”

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