Bell Ashfield - Maria Bell

08/07/2022

Nonnas anniversary mass.

12/11/2018

First home owners, investors and downsizers, have a look at this Unit! Ready to move in or rent out for at least $430 per week. But beyond it merits as an investment property, this unit also will appeal to first home buyers. Ideally appointed with a spacious kitchen, dining and lounge room separated...

17/09/2018

Husband and Wife on the 15th September 2018

03/05/2018

25/04/2018

AUCTION ON SITE 12TH MAY AT 11:30AM
LOCATION, WHEELCHAIR, KIDS & PET FRIENDLY!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ70R9z0Z3k

Your Search Ends Here!!

Modern security building that is wheelchair, kid and pet friendly, including lift access from car park!

A much sought after address, moments to Ashfield Park, Ashfield Shopping Mall and Ashfield Train Station.

In a complex of only 10, this spacious ground floor apartment, offers a great lifestyle and won't last long.

2 bedrooms, both with mirrored built- ins

Flowing open plan lounge & dining with timber floors

Private balcony & air conditioning

Good size Kitchen with gas cooking and dishwasher

All windows have security screens and storm shutters!

Garage in Underground security parking

25/04/2018

Room plus all utilities for Rent in Enmore!

Fully furnished room in Enmore, no utilities to pay
Great bunch of like minded people living in
Own room, with kitchenette
Just freshly painted
Large outdoor kitchen with everything needed to make a roast or bake a cake...
4 Large bathrooms to share
Extra WC
A one minute walk to Enmore shops, Newtown just a quick 5 minutes walk, perfect place to rest and repose!!
Please pm me if you would like a private viewing

11/04/2018

A little bit of real trivia....

Do you know that there are 7,739,274 people that call New South Wales home?

This number has increased 14.8% from 2006-2016!

The fastest growing suburb in this time was Kellyville Ridge, 2155, which saw a 193% increase in population!!

The average weekly (gross) household income is $1486.00 The average for Australia is $1438 and Sydney is 16.31% higher at $1750 per week.....

The top three countries of birth other than Australia are China at 3.1%, England at 3.0% and India at 1.9%.

32.3% of people have a mortgage, compared with 32.2% of people own outright and 31.8% rent this is 20% higher than Europe at 26.9% (EU-28 source: Eurostat)

21/03/2018

I've had an interesting conversation with a 'young' gentleman living in the Presbyterian Nursing Home, right next door to our new office.

He was asking about property prices, and what it was like when he first bought his own home.

Needless to say that he worked hard and lived with his parents to get himself a good deposit to buy his first home.
Unlike today there were no units.

He then asked me where you can get a property under $600,000.00 in Australia.

In Sydney, Luumeah, you can buy a three bedroom home for just $595,000, or you can buy a one bedroom apartment in Cronulla between $550,000 - $575,000, but in other parts of Australia that amount can buy you a lot more....

In Melbourne the suburbs of Mernda, Hoppers Crossing and Sunbury offer affordable family house for just under $600,000! In Prahran you can buy a two bedroom apartment with 90m2 for the same amount.

In Brisbane, suburbs such as Ashgrove and Enogerra as well as Boondall there are home listed for just over $559,000, with lots of space for the kids and dog.

Adelaide hasn't really experienced a booming market for a number of years, so there is plenty on offer. Clapham, Melrose Park, St Marys are all under the $600,000 mark. While in Athelston there is a massive property that even the bathrooms are huge with 5 bedrooms (yes that's right 5 bedrooms) with a price guide of $560,000-$580,000- now that's a bargain!

Perth and Darwin are still pretty much in the doldrums, there is good value all around with huge properties going at apartment prices......

We can say the same for Canberra and Tasmania, prices haven't gone up in ages and are not likely to for at least another year or two.

As the older gentleman has said to me, it depends on what you want and how long your stride is!

Have a great day!

17/11/2017

Pool or No Pool?
Backyard pools have definitely changed in the last decade! No more do you see the big backyard pools with all the terracotta areas eating most of the back yard!

These days, pools are almost like another room just off the house, close to eating areas, and more than likely incorporated within the design of the garden or spectacularly set on a cliff, beach or river.

But the pools themselves are so much smaller, in fact the smaller they are the more they appeal!

In Frederick St Ashfield on a corner block no bigger than 240 square metres there is a lap-pool which is no bigger than tow desks combined in length and only one desk size in width!

Of course, pools have been part of the Australian way since the 1960's, but their popularity has increased and waned once the children hit teenagers and mum and dad were stuck with cleaning without anyone using it much.

But pools have always given the glamour feel to a home.

The legal requirements for a fence detracted a lot from the 'look'.

Now days the pool, that most buyers want is a small pool, one that is easy to maintain, can be used year round and looks glamours all year round.

A good state of the arts pool can return as much as $100,000 investment - a pool built from pebble mix with a railing fence from the local building warehouse doesn't cut the mustard.

But if you live in the inner city, or on a remote/spectacular area above a cliff, beach, mountains it can add real value and then more. Of course you also need to make sure that its safe, kids have an area that they can sit, eat, drink and play.

The pool needs to be striking and also contemporary that offers another 'lifestyle' feature for outdoor living, close to the kitchen, visible from inside (so big full length glass doors) and close to the outside BBQ and eatery.

As more and more people live in our city, our beaches and swimming pools are becoming just so overpopulated that the thought of your own pool with no-one else to share it with other then your family and friends starts to make sense but if you have a traditional pool, which takes up most of the back yard you will find that it can diminish the value of your property, as most people want the convenience of a pool and also a garden

What are your thoughts on this? Would you add a pool to your property? Do you think that its a wise investment? what about the cleaning and maintaining of it?

I'd love to know your thoughts on it........

09/11/2017

Emotional Intelligence: Is It Inherited Or Learnt?

An interesting read written by Ush Dhanak.. enjoy

Emotional intelligence is sometimes held up as the ‘x-factor’ in success; the special ingredient that defines the people who stand out in life; it’s what separates the leaders from the followers.

But is our level of emotional intelligence all mapped out for us when we’re born?
It is often said that we are born with our intelligence (IQ) level and I’ve heard the same applied to emotional intelligence.

The good news for those of you who may be struggling with emotional intelligence is that, from my own observations AND from the available evidence to back it up, the people who claim that it is inherited are wrong. Emotional intelligence can most definitely be learnt!

Far from having a fixed emotional intelligence ‘quota’, EQ is something that you can work on, improve, and learn to be more adept at; and, in doing so, you can increase the likelihood of success in business, relationships, and in life in general.

IQ vs. EQ
Your level of intelligence (IQ) changes little between the ages of 18 and 60. This is because it is mainly inherited, according to most insight on the matter; though childhood development and one’s environment are also thought to have some influence.

Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is made up of a large set of skills that can be learnt and attributes that can be developed.

Any skill can be improved – from riding a bicycle to listening to people. This means that each of us can become more emotionally intelligent over time, if we choose to be. The key is that we must choose to change ourselves.

However, as you will see below, there is some complexity to this…it’s not as simple as it may seem at first.

Openness and readiness to change.

Part of emotional intelligence is something we call personal agility.

This is the ability to anticipate and respond rapidly to changing conditions, take a proactive approach to change, and to anticipate challenges and opportunities. It involves a willingness to rethink past assumptions, and to willingly adapt to change.

Choosing to become more emotionally intelligent requires some emotional intelligence in the first place – specifically in the area of being open and willing to change oneself!

One of the complexities of emotional intelligence is that there are so many attributes that contribute to it. In fact, it has been broken down into 26 separate attributes that span across self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationships.

Most of us will possess more of some of these attributes and less of the others. But it would seem that people with more personal agility in particular will be more likely to improve other aspects of their emotional intelligence than those who are less welcoming of change.

If you have a ‘stubborn’ personality that is set in its ways, the door to raising emotional intelligence through personal change may be less likely to open.

Connecting the emotional with the rational.

Anyone who is able to smile and stay calm in a crisis is doing a good job of modifying their behavior and connecting the emotional brain with the rational brain.

People who are emotionally intelligent are able to strike a good balance between the emotional and rational parts of the brain. They have an element of control over this connection that those who struggle with EQ don’t have.

But neurosciences tells us that the brain is able to constantly develop, creating new neural pathways throughout our lives as we develop new skills; so the brain we have at 18 is not necessarily the same as the one we have at 60.

The group who received the training demonstrated better ability to understand, analyses, express, and regulate their emotions and to understand the feelings of others. These improvements were not only observable immediately after the training – but six months later.have not yet subjected the information to the ‘filter’ of our rational mind.

The more emotionally intelligent amongst us are able to create better control and communication between the rational and emotional centres of the brain.

But the neuroscience mentioned above means that we can all learn this skill, create new neural pathways between these centres and improve communication and control: in other words, we can learn emotionally intelligent skills and turn them into habits with repetition.

Studies on learning emotional intelligence
While comment and conjecture on emotional intelligence has been widespread in the past two decades, studies are few and far between.

One study led by cognitive scientist Delphine Nelis and published in Personality and Individual Differences examined the effects of four emotional intelligence training sessions over a four-week period on 20 college students; this group was compared with another group of 20 who received no EQ training.

The group who received the training demonstrated better ability to understand, analyse, express, and regulate their emotions and to understand the feelings of others. These improvements were not only observable immediately after the training – but six months later.

While the study group was very small and more research is required, it starts to back up what we have observed about the ability to learn emotional intelligence.

Improving your emotional intelligence has the power to improve outcomes in both your professional and personal life. It can lead to better results in academic and occupational pursuits, as well as helping you control stress and improve relationships.

09/11/2017

Forget the car space it’s time to get on your bike!

The times they are a changing at such a pace it’s hard to remember whether your phone opens with a PIN, a fingerprint or by just staring lovingly at it. We’re becoming more urban, more urbane, more loving of apartment life and enjoying a world where we can live happily without owning a car.

What would have been sacrilege a mere generation ago is now becoming the norm – apartment blocks that don’t have car parking spaces for every apartment. Some don’t have them at all.

Former six-lane Swanston St Melbourne will soon exclude cars altogether

Why and how could this happen? Is it because we don’t manufacture cars in this country anymore? More likely that it’s cheaper to buy an apartment with no car space.

An ever growing percentage of us that live in apartments enjoy living in walking distance of public transport, shops, schools, cafes, restaurants and don’t have much need for a car.

Urban planners are busy building us light rail (call them trams, it’s a perfectly good word) bike paths and pedestrian precincts to make the car a nuisance rather than an asset.

Oh well.....I still like my car and the convenience it provides, but goget cars are becoming more temping especially when registrations and all the other insurance come in all at once....

What are your thoughts? Should all new buildings not have car spaces? Tradespeople still need their vans - where will they park? Do they have to buy/lease special areas just for their vans/utes? It makes you think.....