The suburb contains many fine examples of renovated Queenslanders, colonials and post-war workers’ cottages.

Only eight kilometres from the Brisbane CBD, Camp Hill is elevated and overlooks the city.

It is conveniently located between the Carindale shopping centre and the Coorparoo retail precinct, providing residents with a variety of shopping choices.

A restaurant scene is also starting to emerge around Martha Street, which hosts some excellent suburban eateries.

For those commuters opting to leave the car at home, the north-western portion of Camp Hill is located in close proximity to the Norman Park railway station while the remainder is well-serviced by regular bus services to both the city and Carindale.

Once a working class area, Camp Hill has undergone considerable gentrification.

Source: REIQ

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Families make up the majority of residents and occupy a mix of residential acreage and some single unit dwellings on new estates.

More residential developments are planned for the future and it is expected that Burbank will continue to be one of Brisbane’s most expansive suburbs.

The spread-out nature of the suburb means that local amenities are accessed primarily by car.

Public transport in the area is difficult with no rail station and buses limited to the major arterial roads.

However, more frequent bus services to and from the city are available from nearby Capalaba Shopping Centre.

Burbank residents are also reasonably close to the Gateway Motorway, which makes the Gold and Sunshine Coasts readily accessible.

Capalaba Park Shopping Centre and Capalaba Central offer Burbank residents access to all the major supermarkets and retailers, as well as a cinema complex.

Although there are no schools in Burbank, families are well catered for with primary and secondary schools located in neighbouring suburbs.

Source: REIQ

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Young families buying new, brick veneer homes with double garages are driving property price growth in some of Brisbane’s best performing suburbs.

There is also no shortage of demand for properties in the city’s blue-chip suburbs, with Ascot and St Lucia topping the list of best performing areas in 2010, according to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland.

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List: The top 10

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The state’s property market was last year marred by the end of the boost to the first home buyer’s grant and a marked fall in interstate and overseas migration.

However young couples preparing to start a family discovered the arguably “forgotten” suburb of Doolandella, 17 kilometres south-west of the CBD.

Doolandella ranked fourth, behind Ascot, St Lucia and Pullenvale, in the top 10 best performing suburbs in 2010, as a result of its affordability and value for money.

The median house in the suburb increased more than 20 per cent from $357,000 to $431,000.

Doolandella was once characterised by acreage properties of untouched bushland, but Coulson Real Estate principal agent Brian MacDiarmid said the rural area had fast become home to new housing developments.

“The acreage properties are increasingly being bought up and replaced with housing developments,” he said.

Doolandella is nestled between the suburb of Inala and the master-planned estates of Forest Lake.

Brand new, four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes complete with a double lock-up garage are within reach of first home buyers with a young family, Mr MacDiarmid said.

“It’s really been a forgotten suburb,” he said. “But I believe it will really surprise people in the years to come. I believe it will perform over and above Forest Lake in the future.

“This is the place young couples can afford a brand new house with the room needed to raise a family.”

Mr MacDiarmid said Doolandella was in a sense an extension of Forest Lake without the uniformity of a master-planned community.

While there are no services such as schools or shopping centres in Doolandella itself, all amenities are a short distance away in Forest Lake.

On the opposite side of the Ipswich Motorway, Seventeen Mile Rocks was also among the best performers in 2010.

The median house price increased 16.7 per cent from $472,000 to $550,750, largely due to new developments in the Edenbrook and Verandah estates.

Bette McGuane, principal agent of Belle Property Centenary at Mount Ommaney, said first home buyers were attracted to the “sense of community” in the leafy location.

Like in Doolandella, housing developments were replacing acreage properties, Ms McGuane said.

“The three main housing estates here are attracting young families wanting a new, modern home on a decent size block with a pool, or room for a pool, as well as retirees wanting a low-set home,” she said.

More than 54 per cent of households in the area, located 14 kilometres from Brisbane CBD, are couples with young children, according to REIQ.

Brisbane’s traditional blue-chip suburb of Ascot topped the list of best performers in 2010, despite flunking in the previous year.

The median house price growth of 30.6 per cent – from $980,000 to $1.28 million – surprised prestige real estate agent Gail Havig.

She said her main clientele, mining executives, had delayed their property purchases since the announcement of the possible mining tax last year.

“Price growth in Ascot has been less than what is has been historically,” she said. “We had a wonderful resurgence in confidence in the high end of the market in the early part of 2010, until the announcement of the mining tax in May.”

She said elevated suburbs always see greater price growth than suburbs without either river or city views.

“It was the well-heeled southerners [from Sydney and Melbourne] moving to Brisbane in the early 1980s, who began investing in river and city views in Ascot and Hamilton,” she said.

“And that trend will never change.”

Ascot out-performed its neighbour Hamilton, although the two suburbs share a postcode. But Ms Havig said more expensive properties on Hamilton Hill had not come on the market in the past year, as in the previous one.

Hill-top houses in the suburbs of Camp Hill, in Brisbane’s inner-south, and Paddington, in the inner-west, also drove price growth last year.

The booming inner-city suburb of Woolloongabba and the bayside suburb of Manly completed the list of best performing suburbs.

Property analyst Michael Matusik told brisbanetimes.com.au that outside Brisbane’s exclusive riverfront areas, leafy, elevated suburbs would experience the greatest price growth.

Mr Matusik said potential buyers were looking to “future proof” their new home, “meaning that most don’t think prices will rise anytime soon, but they want to make sure that they won’t lose money if things go down the toilet”.

“For some this means being close to infrastructure, to others is means having three or more bedrooms, all with ensuites or having a large allotment,” he said.

“For those buying an apartment it might mean buying in a smaller complex, where there is less resale competition in the future.”

In Brisbane at the moment, he said, “the only common thread at present, is that [buyers] don’t want to buy in a floodable area”.

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The western side of Petrie Terrace was one of the first residential areas developed after Brisbane was settled. Approximately 300 houses, typically built on small lots, are located in this area. These properties have undergone significant renovation and the value of property in the Petrie Terrace precinct has grown substantially over the last few years.

To ensure this neighbourhood loses none of its historic character, the Brisbane City Council has a special control plan to ensure future developments are in accordance with existing residential and historic built environments.

While the older style housing is still attracting some buyers, it is the refurbishment of older buildings into apartments that has been attracting the most attention.

Inner city residential high-rise complexes were first developed during the late 1970s in the area bounded by Alice and Margaret Streets and included Club Lodge and The Gardens complex.

The catalyst for Brisbane City’s residential surge was the conversion of two previous commercial buildings into residential apartments during the mid 1990s. Newspaper House was transformed into the Manor Apartments and Perry House into the Royal Albert Apartments. Several other former commercial buildings have since been converted to residential use with most conversions taking place along Ann and Edwards Streets.

The demand for inner-city living has been reflected in the update, introduction and redesign of the Queen Street Mall, new supermarket facilities in the Myer Centre, and the opening of the new Roma Street Parklands.

Living in Brisbane City means residents are in walking distance to major retailers, business offices, churches, parklands and gardens, the Queensland University of Technology and all forms of public transport. Roma Street Rail Station also acts as a hub for intrastate and interstate coach and rail services.

Residents also have easy access to the Riverside Expressway leading onto the Southeast Motorway and the Gold Coast, the Victoria Bridge and Goodwill Pedestrian Bridge leading into South Brisbane and the Story Bridge leading into Kangaroo Point.

According to the 2001 Census there were 7,351 people living in the suburb with an average age of 37. Of all occupied private dwellings an average of 29% were either fully owned or being purchased; on average 55% were being rented.

Source: REIQ

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