墨尔本最宜居城区--Bentleigh East

Safe: Christina Miesen and her daughter Anna love living in Bentleigh East.

据2008年9月19日《Herald Sun》报道，经过一个星期连续的报道和评估，今天的《Herald Sun》终于公布了墨尔本最宜居的城区，那就是位于东南区的Bentleigh East。

墨尔本近城以东、东南以及海滨区房价在大幅上涨之后，一些心有余而力不足的置业人士将目光转向东区和东南区的中部城区，其中Bentleigh和Bentleigh East就成为其目标区域之一，从而带动这些区内房价水涨船高。

地产经纪David Jane说：“在Bentleigh区，我们往往给一栋房产估了一个价格，最终市场的反应总比这个估价高出10％。”Hocking Stuart地产公司的经纪人Nick Renna也表示，在这些热门区域，最近两周的房产拍卖成交价都比预期的要高出$5～6万元左右。他透露，一位海外买家以$120万元买下一栋位于Mckinnon SC校区内的房产。

那些想购买Brighton和Caulfied区高端房产的买家，退而求其次，往往转而选择Bentleigh。在公立学校排行榜上名列前矛的McKinnon Secondary College坐落于该区，更是这个区房价飞涨的重要原因。不要说这些豪宅，就连一般的房子也越来越难以令人负担得起了。

同样是2月18号，一栋位于Bentleigh East的房子建于1950年，房龄已超过55年。上市的地产经纪本来以为最后的成交价最高不会超过44万，没想到结果以$50万元成交。

这是两年前发表在墨尔本《时代报》上的一篇相关文章：

From 'Have kids, must move out''

The Age February 26, 2006

In some ways, the couples who move to once-daggy McKinnon can suck on their lattes as well as live in the home of their dreams.

The comparatively nondescript patch of suburb, wedged on flat land between Ormond and Bentleigh, is undergoing a mini-boom in school populations and real estate prices. One primary school has seen enrolments rise from 150 to more than 500 in the past decade.

Real estate agents such as Nick Renna of Hocking Stuart and Craig Williamson of Buxtons are enjoying the action as hundreds of people inspect any house in the $550-650,000 price range.

Mostly, they say, the influx is coming from St Kilda, Elwood and Carlton, among people who are trying to hold on to a cosmopolitan lifestyle - they still want the "brekky" outside on Sunday morning. If Bentleigh doesn't suit - and it is trying very hard - then St Kilda is only 10 minutes away.

Williamson says the area's period houses - invariably the Californian bungalow - are often unrenovated, having been in one family for a lifetime. They are affordable - and young couples love stamping their own style upon them.

The magnet at the hub of all this action is McKinnon Secondary College, which last year attained its long-held ambition to be the state system's top non-selective-entry VCE school, measured by the number of subject scores over 40.

The school has always done well, but principal Alan Lawrence can boast that it just pipped the highly regarded Glen Waverley Secondary, and that 93 per cent of the VCE class got first-round university offers.

This year, McKinnon has 1402 students, all taken from the school zone and from siblings of children already at the school.

But Lawrence would like the freedom to pick another 20 or so children from outside the zone for the music-specialty school (the school is famous as the place where The Cat Empire's Harry Angus learned his trumpet skills).

As a result, discussions will be held this week about reducing the size of the zone.

For home buyers, this is the wildcard, one of the factors the Gannons took into account when they bought in Queen Street, just a few streets from the school.

For Andrew, an IT professional working in South Melbourne, and Michelle, a partner in a Camberwell hairdressing salon, it was always going to be a top public or private school for Dylan.

They could probably afford private education, they say, but opted instead to put the money into renovation and possibly a swimming pool."

The other thing was that we didn't want to be slaves to our kids' education, and we also factored in that if we could spend more time with them, rather than having to work, that would also be pretty positive in the relationship and support," Andrew says. So McKinnon it was.