Top Melbourne Suburbs to Invest, For Budgets of Less Than $500,000
MELBOURNE’s once booming real-estate market has finally decelerated – and for the first time in a long time, buyers are calling the shots.
If you have a secure job, low debt and a will to own real estate – banks, developers and the Government want to talk.
But a word of advice: if you do take the plunge, spend what you can afford, rather than the maximum amount you can borrow.
Saturday Domain talks to some experts on which suburbs you should look at, no matter what your budget:
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EIGHT months after the Frankston City Council deferred plans to build the multimillion dollar Frankston Safe Boat Harbour, city developer Asian Pacific Building Corporation has decided to offload the area’s most prominent property. 
AUSTRALIAN Unity is understood to have made about $20 million from the sale of its Footscray Plaza complex, at a busy intersection, in the burgeoning western suburb.
THE CONTENTIOUS planning policy that eastern suburb-based actor Geoffrey Rush warned in 2004 “would fundamentally alter the tone and character of Melbourne in a way that I don’t believe people are quite aware of” has finally claimed the eastern suburb’s most prized development site.
THE FORMER “thoroughbred country” of Melton is a step closer to becoming part of metropolitan Melbourne, with the council formalising a major planning strategy affecting 2400 hectares of vacant land – effectively creating two new suburbs and allowing for the area’s population to more than double within 15 years.
IT was a concept last popular a century ago in then-working-class suburbs like Richmond and Fitzroy, but now it looks like shop-top living is making a big return.
BOX Hill will be identifiable from almost all of Melbourne, after the Victorian Planning Minster Justin Madden “called in” a controversial 38-level tower, behind the Box Hill train station.