Lifestyle the key to Lara’s lure
HOMEBUYERS from Werribee will be following many of their counterparts down the freeway to Lara after snapping up a unique rammed-earth home at auction on Saturday.
Andrew Stephenson called his wife immediately after the auction where he paid $930,000 for the two-storey three-bedroom house at 47-51 Clover St, Lara.
The home provides the Stephensons with the opportunity to enjoy a lifestyle property close to public transport and shopping.
Ray White, Lara auctioneer Matthew Wade said the custom home, which features high cathedral ceilings, solid rammed-earth walls and a 8300sq m property provides buyers with a unique opportunity because of its proximity to access to Melbourne and Avalon Airport.
Mr Stephenson said the unique family house caught their attention.
“We were looking for a quieter lifestyle,” he said.
The family had been looking at homes in Lara and Little River for nine months.
“I think the uniqueness of the house and central location (attracted us to the home),” he said. Ray White, Lara director Jo Boothroyd said the Stephensons would join hundreds of buyers from Melbourne’s outer southwestern suburbs who were relocating to Lara. “I think it’s the traffic. People are trying to position themselves near public transport because the roads are so crazy,” Ms Boothroyd said.
“I’d say 50 per cent of people we sell to are coming from Hoppers Crossing and Point Cook and those areas.”
Ms Boothroyd said the volume of new house sales in those suburbs was exacerbating the traffic bottleneck around Hoppers Crossing and Point Cook.
House prices are also soaring in those outer southwest suburbs, with a new report from SQM Research showing the area has easily been the nation’s best-performing region for property price growth in the past year. Report author and SQM managing director Louis Christopher said prices soared 42 per cent in the city’s southwest in the year to September.