Close proximity to major shopping centres, good schools, transport and places to work and play will create a safety-net for real estate values next year, they say.

Median home values in inner and middle-ring suburbs should hold ground in 2009 if recent economic waves subside, a Sunday Herald Sun survey of senior industry figures revealed.

But homes in suburbs with a saturation of similar properties and inner east suburbs with inflated prices are poised to suffer value drops.

“Follow the infrastructure trail in 2009,” Barry Plant Group boss Barry Plant said.

“Next year and for the next two decades, convenience will guide the market.

“People will no longer travel more than 45 minutes to work and this will put a high value on access to infrastructure.”

Click here to read the full list of forecasts.

Beach Box 28, Esplanade, at the southern end of the Dendy St beach boxes, is selling for the first time this decade.

The vendors, a Brighton family, bought the “all original” box about 15 years ago, when the average price of a box was “about $12,000”, Hocking Stuart agent Kate Strickland said.

She said the 3.5m by 5m weatherboard box had “no special features” but it did have a sofa bed, a table that extended from the wall and an oar decoration on the wall.

“It is definitely old school, a beach box ready for someone to put their stamp on,” Ms Strickland said.

Hocking Stuart last sold a Brighton beach box in summer 2007, for $200,000.

“There have been heaps of inquiry but these boxes never go before auction because it’s the kind of thing that must sell under competition,” she said.

“We’ve had inquiries from people in Florida but, of course, we must sell it to someone paying bayside rates, so that tends to rule out the overseas parties.”

Ms Strickland said she’d be on the beach every Friday night and Saturday afternoon in January, hosting open for inspections.

The yellow and blue bathing box is quoted to sell for “high $100s to low $200s”.