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Perth Now
10-08-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
New price record set for Perth suburb after $4.1m house sale
North Perth's property market has hit a personal best, with a $4.1 million apartment selling recently — and a more expensive one listed for sale. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom penthouse apartment sold in the upcoming Alma Square complex, by Celsius Developments, which is due for completion in early 2028. It is 60 per cent higher than the suburb's current price record of $2.63m, which was paid for a house on Paddington St in May. If the other penthouse in the eight-storey complex sells for its listed price, it will rake in massive $4.3m, putting the inner-city suburb on par with other exclusive areas like Subiaco. And with good reason, given its location 2km from the city, and the extraordinary views from the apartment complex of the city. The view from the North Perth apartment, in the upcoming Alma Square, which hit a price record for the suburb Credit: supplied This vantage point mirrors the iconic South Perth foreshore view — but from the opposite side of the city. Celisius' Richard Pappas said the photograph of the city vista used in advertising material was taken from a cherry picker from the sixth floor. 'The view is square on to the city,' he said. The view from the price record setting apartment in North Perth, Alma Square. Credit: supplied Mr Pappas said 45 of the 108 apartments have already sold, mostly to nearby locals from Coolbinia, Menora and Mount Lawley,. The development has a pool and gym, a 5-star Green star and a 7.2 stars NatHERS rating. North Perth prices have jumped 17.6 per cent in the past year to hit a median sales price of $1.5m. The upcoming North Perth development, Alma Square, with price breaking apartments. Credit: supplied
The Guardian
14-02-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Buying or building a home in Australia? Here are the energy efficiency features worth paying for
When the summer sun hits the west-facing windows of our 20th floor apartment in Melbourne, my resistance to switching on the air-con soon wilts. This generally happens about 4pm, soon after we've lost access to cheap electricity under our solar sponge tariff. I ramp up our power use just as everyone else does, adding demand to an already stressed grid. Even though we're paying for 100% renewable energy, I still feel guilty. We put off using the air-con for as long as possible, first by turning on the overhead fans we've installed in every room. Fans don't lower the temperature, but extra air flow makes a room feel about 3C cooler. Fans are cheap to run and, when combined with air-con, cut the energy needed for cooling. We also lower the blinds. Up to 87% of a home's heat is gained through windows, and every square metre of glass hit by direct sun can generate as much heat as a single bar radiator. Unfortunately, our blinds are black and absorb more heat than they repel. Our next investment will be blinds with a thin coating of reflective aluminium. The suppliers say they can reduce temperatures by up to 8C compared to rooms without window coverings. Aluminium may beat back the heat when it's bonded to a blind, but in other settings it acts as a super conductor. Our windows are double-glazed but the aluminium frames radiate like hotplates. This could have been avoided by installing a gasket. 'The gasket provides a thermal break so the inside and outside of the frames operate at different temperatures,' explains the architect Jeremy McLeod, founder of Breathe Architecture and Nightingale Housing, who has been designing buildings that score at least 7.5 on the NatHERS energy rating scale since 2015. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Our tower block was constructed in the 1990s, so perhaps the builders can be excused for not insulating the window frames, but McLeod reckons thermal breaks should now be standard in any new apartment. The additional cost is quickly recouped in energy savings and is falling fast as these frames become more common. Ideally, we should use external shades to prevent the sun hitting our apartment windows in the first place. But Melbourne is a windy city, and the higher up you go, the stronger the wind gets. 'There's a lot of nervousness about fixing a shade sail to a tall building,' McLeod says. Good engineering and sensors that retract the blinds in high winds might overcome this challenge, but building rules prevent us modifying the outside of the building. The rules can only be changed at an AGM or by special resolution, with the support of 75% of lot owners. As homeowners, we at least have the right to make changes inside our apartment. Renters must resort to temporary fixes, such as double glazing with bubble wrap, or using cardboard to shield windows when temperatures climb. Emma Bacon is the founding director of Sweltering Cities, which this month convened Australia's first Extreme Heat Awareness Day. She warns that climate change makes heatwaves more dangerous, but the impact is not equally shared, since renters are more likely to live in poorly built homes without insulation or air-con. Then there's location to consider. 'Lower income suburbs have a higher heat island effect,' says Bacon. 'The hotter your suburb is, the poorer it's likely to be,' she says. 'Putting trees on a street can reduce the urban heat island effect by several degrees. And if your street is 3C cooler then your home will be 3C cooler too.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Since 2010, the National Construction Code has required all new homes to meet a six-star NatHERS rating, and this is credited with making newer dwellings twice as efficient as those built earlier. Last year, the bar was raised to seven stars, but some states are dragging their feet on complying. And Bacon says the scale is out of date because it's calibrated to historical climate data rather than today's hotter summers. She identifies crucial things to look out for when considering building or buying a house in a suburban growth area. 'The first is simple commonsense measures, such as the colour of the roof or whether there is any space around the house for planting trees,' she says. Research shows that lighter coloured roofs can save households almost $700 a year in energy costs. Another is the direction a house faces, which affects how hot or cold it gets. Then there is energy efficiency, such as good insulation, deep eaves for shade, solar panels and double- or triple-glazed windows. Bacon says getting a home to beat the heat can mean pushing developers hard. 'The priorities of the building industry are not necessarily to inform customers what it might be like to live in the house in terms of thermal comfort or energy efficiency.' While acknowledging that housing is already too expensive, Bacon thinks trading off thermal comfort for affordability is a false economy. 'Without good thermal efficiency and high design standards the more expensive housing will become, not just for the households paying high energy bills but for all of us through higher carbon emissions. 'There are so many choices that are much easier to make at the point of building rather than retrofitting.' That's something I reflect on every time I switch on the air-con.
