Banner-wavers need not be hysterical, as an Aldi is not going to de-value house prices: Terry Ryder

I keep a file of events claimed by banner-wavers to destroy property values, and I thought I had a complete list.

But a new one has popped up on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast: construction of an Aldi supermarket.

This one has me even more baffled than the other items on the list of value destroyers. There is no research evidence that having an Aldi in your neighbourhood decimates house prices – indeed, the quick exercise I did this morning indicates the opposite.

But this phenomenon of residents bellowing outrage over their property values being destroyed by all manner of things is becoming quite bizarre.

The broad list of resident evils includes development of townhouses in the street. A retirement village down the road. A Buddhist temple (aren’t they the terrorist people?). A detox centre in the suburb (maybe that one has some validity). A refugee processing facility outside the town. Mining somewhere in the region. An NBN transmission tower on the horizon.

Seaweed washed up on the local beach is deemed to de-value million-dollar waterfront homes.

Wind farms are a great favourite among the hysterical. The list of disasters deemed likely to flow from the presence of wind turbines (including cows unable to give milk and chickens refusing to lay) is annihilation of property values for any home with a distant turbine view.

And few things create a neighbourhood meltdown like plans for a mosque.

It’s an issue I’ve followed for years and here’s the thing: none of the people protesting about their property values being hurt by these and other “nasties” ever produce any research evidence to show that their concerns have some foundation.

This is, I’m sure, because the research doesn’t support them. Often it shows the opposite.

Lakemba has the largest mosque in Australia in its midst, and it has averaged 8.5% in annual growth in its median house price in the past three years, one of the best results in Sydney. The suburb’s median unit price has done even better, averaging 10% per year growth over the past three years and 8% per year average growth over the past five years.

But facts are a minor annoyance to people who get a bee in their bonnets about something deemed undesirable for their locale.

Some of the residents of Brightwater estate in the suburb of Mountain Creek on the Sunshine Coast clearly haven’t got enough to do with their time, because they’re wasting it on a noisy protest about plans for a supermarket in their neighbourhood.

Retail facilities are generally considered a bonus for a suburb, providing a desirable alternative to having to drive outside the area to find a supermarket.

But the issue here is not so much that it’s a supermarket but that it’s an Aldi. My god, the Germans!

The rhetoric from the outraged citizens of Brightwater suggests that only bogans shop at Aldi and, frankly my dear, it lowers the tone.

This distresses me, as I and my partner like to shop at Aldi. It’s the cheapest place for supermarket goods by a considerable margin. All supermarket chains claim to have the lowest prices, but the independent research shows that the only venue that is consistently cheaper is Aldi.

But a spokesperson for Brightwater Residents against Aldi (yes, they’ve formed an action group and called it BRA) says: “Aldi is not suited for Brightwater’s demographics.” Another resident says: “It will hurt the demographics as it’s not a classy store. Brightwater is known to be modern and upscale. The prices of houses will definitely be affected.”

So clearly, the issue here is snobbery, even though Mountain Creek is hardly upmarket real estate. The median house price is in the mid-$400,000s, and it’s your typical mainstream suburb of brick-and-tile homes on blocks the size of a postage stamp. It’s pretty much Fountain Lakes (the fictional domicile television’s Kath and Kim) with a slightly better climate.

But the biggest beef for the bellicose burghers of Brightwater is that it will lower house prices.

Really? Let’s look at some figures.

Mountain Creek, currently bereft of an Aldi store, has recorded a 5.2% drop in its median price over the past 12 months. Indeed, values have been falling over the past three years. The 10-year average of 7.4% a year is better news, but very ordinary by national standards.

Let’s compare that with another Sunshine Coast location, Beerwah, which does have an Aldi store. Beerwah values have been growing at an average rate of 10.6% a year.

In the Brisbane metropolitan area, the number-two suburb for capital growth, averaging 13.5% a year, is Booval in the south-west near Ipswich. Booval has an Aldi store.

Kingston, in Logan City in the south of the metro area, has a capital growth average of 12.2% a year, despite the presence of a German supermarket.

Springwood, Bald Hills, Browns Plains, Loganholme and Oxley are all suburbs of Brisbane with double-digit growth rates and Aldi stores.

There are Aldi stores in Sydney suburbs like Marrickville and Leichharst, both near-city locations with median house prices around $800,000.  Despite the Teutonic retail influence, both have averaged median house price growth of 7%-8% per year over the past three years and similar averages over the past five years.

North Sydney has a median house price above $1 million, a tad more ritzy than bogansville-by-the-bay on the Sunshine Coast, but they put in an Aldi store and property values have kept growing, averaging 5% in recent years.

Based on that evidence, the Brighwater folk with too much time and too little to do can put away their banners, take a sedative and go back to watching The Bold and the Beautiful.

Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au and can be followed on Twitter.