jackl27

Goodna was a suburb we never really considered living in.

However, a friend lived in a new development in Redbank Plains and said it was worth checking out the area on price alone - I went online and looked, and Goodna has two extraordinary things going for it.

Firstly, the Goodna-CBD express is a 30 minute trip. This is equivalent to suburbs we were looking at on the north side - Boondall, Strathpine, on the south side Coopers Plains, Ferny Grove to the northwest, and Hemmant out east.

That's not to say that Goodna is necessarily equivalent to all those suburbs. It certainly has a higher crime rate than virtually all of those those suburbs, but not as much as people might think. 15% more than Strathpine per capita, about twice as much as Boondall (which is a much more expensive and nicer suburb), twice as much as Coopers Plains, four times as much as Ferny Grove, and around twice as much as Hemmant.

I think it's a given to say that Goodna is not strictly speaking, as nice as these suburbs crime-wise.

That being said, Bellbird Park has a crime rate around that of Hemmant, Boondall, and Coopers Plains - the crime is extremely concentrated to the north side of the suburb where the shopping centre, police station, train station etc are - we live on the very edge of the suburb and find it is quite nice.

Goodna has some nice parklands and some very nice bushlands to the south, though admittedly the options for eating out are a little sparse and standard. The internet is FTTP for the most part which is spectacular, especially now during Covid-19. Shopping has Springfield 10 minutes away to the south and Redbank to the west, so you're not short on options.

But you also need to compare on price. For a house equivalent to what we've bought in Goodna (a nice Queenslander built from hardwood with no structural or termite problems on a 1000 sqm property), the same house in Strathpine is around $400k. Closer to $500k in Boondall and Coopers Plains. You are realistically looking at $650k for the same in Hemmant, and maybe $700k-800k in Ferny Grove.

You can buy houses like these in Goodna in the $200k-$300k range outside of the flood zones.

Speaking frankly, I was made redundant due to the coronavirus and if we'd borrowed the $700k-800k the bank had been willing to lend and bought in Ferny Grove we would have been in a great deal of trouble at the moment. Here, though, with one of us working reduced hours, we're completely fine. The amount of slack in our finances is huge.

The important thing on crime in Goodna is that it is consistently reducing, around 4-5% year-on-year. This is admittedly a slow process, and Goodna will never be the equal of more expensive suburbs on crime, but that's reality. However, gentrification is definitely taking off, and there are a lot of young professionals without rich parents or other safety nets such as myself looking at cheaper areas that still have good access to the city - can you imagine buying a house 30 minutes from the CBD of Sydney for that price? Try 3 or more hours!

I don't think I would have bought here if I had kids ready to go to school, but it'll be a few years yet before we have kids and then another 5 before they reach the school system - by then, I strongly anticipate the continued gentrification of the suburb will have made a substantial difference.