Nine moves key shows to Docklands

The Nine network will shoot its Melbourne-based productions from the Melbourne Docklands Studio from next year.  

Nine has signed a five-year deal to move productions including Millionaire Hot Seat, The Footy Show and the coming National IQ Test from their traditional Richmond base to Docklands’ Sound Stage Four and then Sound Stage Five in a year after it is re-fitted with motorised lighting systems, control rooms and storage facilities.

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Power price shock hits households

 

Electricity bills have shot past $3200 a year for some Victorians amid soaring prices and blowouts in energy use.

And annual costs could hit a shocking $10,000 for big households in five years if a carbon tax is introduced, an analyst warns.

Exclusive research on the state’s residential power bills reveals the biggest are in Guys Hill on Melbourne‘s eastern outskirts, Mickleham, Curlewis, southeast of Geelong, and Merricks North on the Mornington Peninsula.

Areas with the lowest median bills include Flemington, Golden Beach in Gippsland, Jacana in Melbourne’s north and Carlton.

The cost of bills are influenced by price, location, how large and energy-efficient homes are, how often people are at home and whether there is electric or gas heating and hot water.

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North Melbourne graffiti crackdown

 

Social media websites have been blamed for turning North Melbourne into a graffiti hot-spot attracting under-age taggers from across the state.

Sergeant Monique Kelley said some local traders were believed to be selling spray-cans to the youths, which is illegal if the buyer is under 18.

And she said it was likely the sales were being promoted online, as kids were travelling from as far afield as Echuca. “Word of mouth can’t travel this well. They (the businesses) must be advertising on Facebook or another social site,” Sgt Kelley told Melbourne Leader.

The increase in the amount of tagging in the suburb has prompted police to launch Operation Blackwood at and around North Melbourne train station. Police have swarmed the precinct twice in the past month and issued seven $587 on-the-spot fines for possession of spray cans without a valid excuse. Officers have also confiscated 120 aerosol cans, including one car-load containing 70 cans.

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August REIV vacancy rates

 

Another month has passed with very little change or improvement in the availability of rental homes in Victoria.
The August release of the REIV’s residential vacancy rates showed that a mere 1.7 per cent of rental homes were vacant, the same as in July this year and slightly better than this time last year when it was 1.4 per cent.

This is in stark contrast to the first half of the last decade when rental homes were much more available; for instance, in August 2003 the vacancy rate was 3.6 per cent.

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Auctions rescheduled ahead of AFL rematch

 

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) expects a large number of auctions to be rescheduled ahead of Saturday’s AFL grand final rematch.

Grand final weekend was one of the slowest for auctions with about 50 across Melbourne.

Almost 600 auctions are planned for this weekend.

A spokesman from the REIV, Robert Larocca, says it is an unprecedented situation for the Melbourne auction market.

“We won’t know for a day or so. Some [auctions] will shift to earlier in the day, some will shift to Sunday and some will shift to the weekend after,” he said.

“It will depend on the day, place and time and how the agent and vendor are feeling.”

Source: ABC News

Costco pumps $140m into Aussie growth

Costco’s only Australian store made $8.9 million in sales and membership fees in its first two weeks of operation, as customers flocked to the warehouse discount outlet.  

But Costco Wholesale Australia made an overall loss of $14 million in the year to August 31, 2009, due to the costs of establishing its second store and headquarters in New South Wales, its special purpose annual report revealed.

The company had reported an annual loss of $2.4 million in the previous year due to the cost of establishing its maiden store at Melbourne‘s Docklands.

That store opened on August 17, 2009, and the annual report, filed with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission on Tuesday, reflects sales during its first two weeks of operation.

Costco now has 345 employees in Australia and an annual salary bill of more than $9 million.

The annual report also reveals that its parent company in America has injected another $140 million worth of capital into the company.

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$20 Million Melbourne North Police Station Opens

The opening of a brand new police station in North Melbourne marked a new era of policing in the city’s inner-north, Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron said today.

Officially opening the new $20 million Melbourne North Police Station on Wreckyn Street in North Melbourne, Mr Cameron said the facility was a leap forward in the Brumby Labor Government’s commitment to making Victoria a safer place to live and work. 

“This new 24-hour police station will keep the community safe and help continue to lower the local crime rate,” Mr Cameron said. 

“The new station caters for a Uniform Branch, Crime Investigation Unit, Highway Patrol, and Proactive Program Unit. 

“The new building is spread over four storeys and features four interview rooms, two holding rooms and sustainable design features. It also created 600 full-time jobs during construction. 

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Victorian Premier John Brumby’s $3.6 billion stamp duty steal

 

Struggling home buyers in Victoria have been slugged more than $3.6 billion by John Brumby‘s Labor Government in just 12 months as his tax take on property soars.

Figures released yesterday reveal the stamp duty rip-off increased by $800 million last year.

When Labor took power 11 years ago the annual tax was worth $1 billion.

 The revelation has prompted anger from property groups, who are demanding Premier John Brumby and Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu cut our stamp duty – the highest in Australia, the Herald Sun reports.

REIV spokesman Robert Larocca said it was time stamp duty tax was cut.

“This is not about giving away future increases. It is about making sure Victorians get a fair go in buying a house,” he said.

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Palatial spreads kept empty? That’s rich

They are Toorak‘s ghost mansions: grand houses that have sat unoccupied behind chained gates and boarded-up windows for years, even decades.

As Melbourne struggles with a housing shortage, some of the city’s finest abodes are home to nothing more than dust and cobwebs.

Take, for example, a French Renaissance-style mansion in St George‘s Road that Asian-based property tycoon David Yu bought in 1991 for $5 million and has left unoccupied since.

The land alone, believed to be one of Toorak’s largest allotments, could now be worth as much as $35 million.

Plans by Mr Yu to build a five-storey apartment block on the site were rejected a decade ago.

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Melbourne’s $20m mansion

The title of Melbourne‘s most expensive house has passed to a Toorak mansion, which is believed to have changed hands for a record $20 million.

The mansion, named Miegunyah, was sold by ex-Pacific Dunlop chief Phillip Brass to an undisclosed buyer.

Mr Brass is reported to have bought the property, located at 641 Orrong Road in the inner eastern suburb of Melbourne, for $2 million in 1991 from businessman Robert Holmes a Court.  

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