EPISODE 30 SUBURB SPOTLIGHT -BALMAIN Marcus: Hi, and welcome to Sydney Property Insider, your weekly podcast speaking about all things property in the city of Sydney. Michelle and I are with you once again, and we are here with another Suburb Spotlight, this week on Balmain. Michelle, how's your week been? Michelle: Good, and yours? Marcus: Yeah, really well, really well. This week, we are moving from Paddington over to the Inner West, and we're moving to the very gentrified suburb of Balmain. Michelle: That's right. Yes. Now, I love Balmain. I used to work around there, and it's one of the suburbs that is close to my home. But did you know that the history of Balmain starts with William Balmain, who was the principal surgeon of New South Wales and the first fleet surgeon? He was really the one who started Balmain because he received a grant in 1800 of 550 acres for services rendered from the governor of New South Wales. In 1859, a petition was signed by the residents requesting that the borough of Balmain was incorporated. So, really, the suburb really started developing between 1830 and 1850. 1810 was when Birchgrove House was built by John Burton. That's believed to be the first house on the peninsula. Now, that overlooks Snails Bay. Beautiful place. But the reliance on steamers and ferries and coastal vessels for both travel and trade really resulted in the establishment of the shipyards along the harbor side there. With the shipyards, the advent of the shipyards, it brought the workers who wanted to live close to their place of work, wanted to keep the commute short. As the population increased, so did the demand for services. So you got the houses, the shops, the churches, schools, police, a local hospital, and a local government. Marcus: And the pubs. Michelle: Don't forget the pubs. Quite a few of them in Balmain. By the 1880s, Balmain claimed to be the leading social suburb in Sydney. Numerous clubs were formed at that time, as well, including rowing, swimming, bowling, and cricket. Institutes such as the Balmain Library Institute, the Balmain's Working Men's Institute, and the Balmain School of the Arts was also established around that time. Marcus: Which, interestingly, then, if you go a few years later than that, the Australian Labor Party was actually ... is claimed to have its oldest branch in Balmain from 1891, so really the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party, which again goes hand in hand with, I guess, the demographics of the area and the people in the area at that time. Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. Now, because of that prosperity and the security of Balmain, the suburb continued to attract the industry to the peninsula. However, by the late 1880s, it was really clear that the suburb had become overcrowded and badly organized. Factories were opened next door to houses and schools, and streets had been created in the most inappropriate places. The suburb went into decline. By the early 20th century, the industrial activity had dropped off, and the older population was moving out of the suburb and the younger, poorer population was moving into the area. The affluent character that Balmain once had was really changing. By 1933, 38.1% of all Balmain workers were unemployed. Compare that to the New South Wales average at the time of 18.4%, so significantly higher than the New South Wales average. It really turned into a slum, almost. Obviously, now, looking the way Balmain is now, it's turned around again completely. Where once it was a workers' suburb, it's very much a white-collar suburb now, affluent, one of the most expensive suburbs in the Inner West, and obviously that's continuing to stay that way, obviously because of its proximity to the CBD, as well, and the convenience that it has there. Marcus: Yeah. Certainly, with that history, it's amazing to see the change over the years from that blue-collar, sort of socialist and Labor Party movement to, really, that white-collar, absolute professional services group of people that now reside in Balmain. As late as 2016, in the census we were seeing that Balmain had just over 10,000 people, being smaller than Paddington, which we mentioned the other week, but still certainly larger than Naremburn or other suburbs that we've mentioned prior. It really is a white-collar suburb, and those jobs take over 80% of the employment in the area. This is really a huge shakeup from Balmain's roots as that working-class area. I think it was New South Wales' premier Neville Wran who once said, "You can take the boy out of Balmain, but you can't take Balmain out of the boy." If they said that these days, it would be, "You can take the boy out of the BMW SUV, but you can't take the BMW SUV out of the boy." So it's really changed over the years, and it has been changing for a number of years. Prime Minister Paul Keating even once made note of the basket weavers of Balmain. So you've moved from the heart and soul of the Labor Party to where it was almost cast aside as far too yuppie and far too upmarket. In terms of the people that lived there, banking, financial services are two of the most popular industries of employment in the area. Page 2 of 8 You've got married couples being just over 43% of the population, which is, again, lower a population ratio than the New South Wales average of 48%. One of the things I found really surprising when I started doing some research was that their religious affiliation constitutes 41% of the population against 25% across New South Wales wide, and the largest group of, I guess, heritage are Australian and English. I had always, in my head, I guess even from 25, 30 years ago growing up, associated Balmain with a traditionally strong Italian heritage and having Leichhardt, the Balmain Tigers, having Italian heritage links. I also, I guess, expected Catholicism to be high and have a high proportion, but it really is only a ... It's 22% of the suburb's population, which again is lower even than the state average. Michelle: I think it's probably also due because there is probably a larger contingence of ex-pats living on the Balmain peninsula. Marcus: Certainly true. Yeah. Michelle: So that brings with them the dilution of that strong heritage Catholic background. Marcus: Now, in terms of the types of properties that are around, you've got townhouses and terrace houses, which are just over half or 55% of the residences in the area. You can certainly appreciate when you walk through that fully detached houses are only less than 10%, in that 8.6%. Michelle: 8.6. Yeah. Yeah. Marcus: Those are really well held on to in the area. Michelle: You also find that people, once they move to the peninsula, be it Balmain or Birchgrove or Rozelle, that people tend to upgrade or downsize within that area, so people tend to not leave. Once you're on the peninsula, you never go. That's what people tend to say. So, yeah, it's a tight pocket of property for sure. Now, if you're looking at the numbers, the stats, on Balmain, both houses and units, so if you're looking at houses, whilst it's recorded as having .1% negative growth this year from last year, it actually didn't have any negative growth since 2012. So hasn’t gone down since 2012. But looking at this year, for example, only 29 houses have sold compared to 2017 overall had 126 sales. So we're well behind on those numbers. That contraction of the .1% could well be due because of the lack of stock, anyway. Marcus: Yeah, especially given that we're now in- Page 3 of 8 Michelle: It doesn't really give you, yeah, a good overview of what the real median price should be, but that median price sits at just over 2 mil at 2 million 75. Now, if you compare that to Birchgrove, for example, where only 7 houses have sold in this year, that traditionally is a more expensive suburb, but the median has just come down to a million 95. Again, I don't think that's a true reflection because the previous year it was 2.3 million with 45 sales overall. So Birchgrove is an even smaller pocket compared to Balmain. Rozelle is traditionally seen as the more-value-for-money suburb next to it. There, the median price is at $1.475m, so that's considerably lower than the Balmain with just over 2 mil. When you're looking at units, the median price for units in Balmain is 1.75m, down from 1.315 for last year. But, again, only a small number of properties have sold there: only 28 in 2018 compared to 82 in 2017. Obviously, we're in the depth of winter right now. Marcus: Yeah, as we record this in mid- to late-August 2018. But, still, the numbers against, I guess, 12 months of 2017 are far behind where you would expect them to be this far into the calendar year. Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. So when you're looking at price segmentation over the last 12 months, in what price bracket were most properties sold? When you're looking at houses in Balmain, most properties were sold between the one and a half to two million.