Posted by admin on 29 January 2010
Apartment owners: Did you know your body corp does not cover you for public liability inside the four walls of your property?
Many owners have never had this explained to them. So what danger are you in as a landlord? In case of a slip and fall claim by a tenant. In case of an accident in the bath or shower. Plus many more risks. Someone has to pay damages, and hopefully that person is your insurer.
Did you know a policy for Landlord Protection Insurance can cover you not only for the all important Public Liability but may also cover you for:
• Loss of Rent claims caused by storm or fire (we recently had a home in Paddington with the roof blown off, but with a policy to cover your loss of rent it doesn’t cost the landlord anything)
• Carpet damages and clean ups caused by air conditioning leaks or washing machine blow outs
• Loss of Rent claims caused by absconding tenants or rent arrears or properties left in a mess while you/we clean up
• Damages caused by tenants Maliciously, Accidentally or Purposefully
Imagine this scenario… your agent selects a good tenant with references and all the bells and whistles. But three months later, they break up with their spouse and get fired from their job!
The rent stops, of course they get no phone call. The tenants walk away because it’s all too hard!
At 8 days we issue a Notice to Remedy Breach for rent arrears, 7 days later the tenants haven’t paid, the next day we issue a Notice to Leave and 7 days later the tenants haven’t handed back the keys. We put in the paperwork to go to court for a Warrant for Possession, then next week attend. We get the Warrant and the Police come the next week.
The agent is finally able to change the locks and have possession of the property back. They find they have 6 hours of cleaning, carpet cleaning and a bill from the new set of locks and keys.
We’re already more than 5 weeks without rent! The bond money (usually a maximum of 28 days worth) has been spent in a heartbeat yet the agent has done everything the law allows. So who pays…?
You or your insurer…. your call.
Tags: Bond Money, Brisbane tenants, landlord insurance, Public Liability Insurance, Rent Arrears, tenant damage, Water Damage
Posted in Brisbane landlords | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 28 January 2010
What a load of rubbish.
You’ve got to love these research firms who put out media releases reporting facts on property trends. No doubt covering a whole nation in one report is tough, but the overnight claim by Australian Property Monitors that prices are up 12% has no relevance to Brisbane. It gives sellers false hope and panics buyers unnecessarily.
There has been more activity in the higher end lately so it’s possible the median sale price has risen because more expensive properties sold as a percentage of all sales.
But on the ground we are not seeing 12% price rises. Of course we’d love it to happen, and part of us begs and pleads for it to be so.
But it’s not!
Tags: Australian Property Monitors, Brisbane home prices, Brisbane median home prices
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 25 January 2010
What do you do if you’re a tenant worried about some damage you’ve done to your rental home. You’re pretty confident you won’t get any bond back. Do you, A: give the agent a call to discuss? B: attempt to repair the place? or C: burn the house to the ground?!
Incredibly one Rockhampton tenant recently chose ‘C’ in an attempt to destroy evidence of his damage!
According to a report from EBM Landlord Insurance it’s alleged the tenant told a neighbour he was going to burn down the property because there was no chance of his bond being returned. Just hours later, neighbours heard smoke alarms and spotted smoke billowing from the house. Emergency services quickly extinguished the fire – luckily with little damage being caused.
The man claimed the fire was caused by his earlier attempts to burn his ex-housemate’s possessions, and he had been asleep in the property at the time – something fire-fighters could confirm, as they had to wake him up while the blaze was brought under control. The tenant pleaded guilty to wilful damage and received a fine in addition to one month’s custody served earlier, and was also ordered to pay $1,689 restitution.
We didn’t hear what happened to his bond!
Tags: bond refunds, landlord insurance, rental bond Queensland, tenant damage
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 25 January 2010
Brisbane Opera House of the future?
Every now and again we hear mumblings about Brisbane one day having an Opera House of its own. This is one university student’s recent concept drawing of what it could look like if built the river side of Brisbane Square, a podium traversing the Riverside Expressway. Jesse Lockhart-Krause says the 1400 seat building would be chameleon-like, “changing its face according to night and day”.
It’s a stunning piece of left-field thinking…. very cool. It’d also be a neat way of linking the arts precinct of South Bank with the CBD.
Tags: Brisbane Opera House, Brisbane Square, Riverside Expressway Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane CBD, architecture and renovation | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 23 January 2010
As competition weakened amongst home loan lenders during 2009 there was a common and frustrating side effect: Buyers started asking for 21 day finance clauses on their contracts.
This wasn’t something buyers dreamt up, but rather a regular directive issued by the banks in what we can only guess was an attempt to ease their paperwork pressures. And it’s still happening now.
Buyers and their banks need to consider the ‘cost’ of expanding the normal finance timelines of 7 or 14 days. A seller has to effectively withdraw their property from the market while they wait to see if you’ll get your money. They might have started a new marketing campaign, ads booked, money spent. When sales were slow sellers might have agreed to it but now they’re likely to need a premium price to justify the delay.
Yes the agents can take back-up contracts (that take effect only if the first contract fails) but will that second buyer also be happy to join the game of ‘wait and see’ and miss other homes?
We hear Australian car buyers can now access pre-approved personal finance online. “Synergy” uses sophisticated identity checking, credit assessment and dynamic verification. It means they can get conditional pre-approval 24/7 in one internet session.
Three weeks for a home loan approval? Buyers should be asking for better service from their banks.
Tags: back-up contracts, Brisbane home loans, finance clause, home buyers Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 22 January 2010
Friday’s best joke!
It’s a slow day in a little Western Queensland town. The sun is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from the Gold Coast is driving through town. He stops at the Royal Hotel lays a $100 note on the (rickety) desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
As soon as the man walks the creaky old stairs the owner grabs the $100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill for fuel and groceries. The manager of the Co-op takes the $100 and sneaks out to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to resort to offering her “services” on credit. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller creaks down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However the whole town is now out of debt and looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
Tags: bad but clean jokes
Posted in just for fun! | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 20 January 2010
After much anticipation Quattro on Astor has just been released onto the Spring Hill market with its major launch last weekend. The building has been sitting there for a year or so without any activity as a result of the developer going into receivership.
I looked around the development yesterday which comprises of 52 residential apartments which are all 2 bedrooms, most with 2 bathrooms. Although Quattro has only officially been on the market a number of days reports are that 60% of the apartments already have contracts on them.
A great vote of confidence for the local Spring Hill market!
Its location is on the junction of Spring Hill, the CBD and the Valley and is ideal for virtually everything that central Brisbane has to offer.
Great thought has gone into the design of the apartments. One of its best features in my opinion are the generous balcony areas. A good spot to enjoy not only the views but also the sub tropical climate that us Queenslanders love. The rooftop pool, spa and sauna looks like a great spot to exercise and relax. Overall the design and quality of finish is high.
Remaining apartments are priced from $490,000 so if you can picture yourself in this environment give me a call (0404 397 117) ASAP as these apartments won’t last long. I’d be happy to show you around, you won’t be disappointed!
Tags: Astor Terrace Spring Hill, Quattro on Astor Spring Hill
Posted in Brisbane's future & new infrastructure, Brisbane's sales market, Spring Hill, real estate marketing | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 18 January 2010
Our inner-city’s rental pool shrank again in 2009, confirmed by new data on Brisbane’s housing market. The Residential Tenancies Authority last week released their December quarter stats and the news for tenants isn’t good: the inner city has “lost” almost 500 homes.
First home buyers bought up rental properties and owner-residents continued the trend to move in from Brisbane’s outer ‘burbs.
These buyers have booted out tenants and without any new apartment projects completed the rental homes haven’t been replaced. When you have 500 homes disappear in 3 months it means tenants wanting to be amongst the action and lifestyle of the city now have less to choose from.
The RTA track all rental bonds and across greater Brisbane the total reduced by 538 in the December quarter. The inner city suburbs accounted for 490 of them.
And there’s no big additions to the rental pool on the horizon.
There’s just one big tower under construction in the CBD but it’s at least 2 years away. Across the inner city we have a couple of apartment buildings nearing completion but many of their sales have already been made to owner-residents. It’s going to be well into 2011 before we see any worthwhile increase in supply.
Despite this we’d suggest last week’s controversial Australian Property Monitors forecast for an 8% rent rise in Brisbane during 2010 is not something landlords should ‘take to the bank’.
December’s stats showed a 2 bedroom inner city apartment was now $440 per week, with that median rent not changing since March 2009. The RTA includes the CBD and surrounding 20 suburbs in their “city inner” category, and that area now has just 29,294 rental homes.
Read more on the latest stats on Brisbane median rents.
Tags: first home buyers, rental bond Queensland, rental supply Brisbane, Residential Tenancies Authority
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 16 January 2010
MEDIA RELEASE
Saturday 16th January 2010
New data on Brisbane’s rental housing market was released yesterday and it shows the city’s rents flat-lined during 2009. According to the Residential Tenancies Authority statistics, the December quarter again showed no change to median weekly rents.
Bees Nees Research Managing Director, Rob Honeycombe says a typical Brisbane house has now had the same rent for a year, with apartments rising just 1%. So this week’s controversial Australian Property Monitors forecast for an 8% rise during 2010 is “ambitious”, he said.
“There’s a shortage of rental homes, no doubt about that. But 8% growth is a big leap from 0%”, Mr Honeycombe said.
December’s stats showed a 3 bedroom Brisbane house rent remained at $370 per week while a 2 bedroom apartment still costs $355.
Mr Honeycombe said the APM forecast pointed to greater job confidence amongst Brisbane tenants and the end of the First Home Boost as stimulants for higher rents.
“On the ground, real estate agents are reporting a busy January market with a lot more turnover than any time during 2009. But tenants are not generally agreeing to big rent increases. There’s obviously still caution about their jobs and rent affordability remains top of mind.”
“Landlords are still cautious too. Their mortgage rates are up and they don’t want to risk a vacant home.”
“This will be a better year for property investors but we’d argue the rent rise will be a steady one.”
Tags: Australian Property Monitors, Brisbane landlords, Brisbane property research, Brisbane rents, First Home Owners Boost, median rents Brisbane, rental prices Brisbane, rental supply Brisbane, Residential Tenancies Authority, tenants Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | 1 Comment »
Posted by admin on 15 January 2010
The latest RTA data is out and the graph below shows rents increased slightly in the December 2009 quarter, with median rent for a 2 bedroom apartment up $10 and back to the June figure of $540. The past year saw some tenant job losses and some rent drops.
For the most part though the area proved resilient and it’s the corporate and executive rental markets that have been most effected. There’s a much smaller number of rented houses in the area and their rent also crept back up to previous levels – now $500 for a 3 bed.
This is still far and away the most expensive rental destination in Brisbane and the number of rented homes is shrinking, with first home buyers and other owner-occupiers moving in at the expense of tenants.
Losing 165 homes from the rental pool this past quarter alone, it’s now at its lowest level in 3 and a half years. So while the new developments of 2003 to 2006 did boost supply enormously the number of rental homes on offer to tenants now is low and still shrinking.
Note: The RTA groups all of postcode 4000 including Spring Hill, so the stats quoted here cover the 2 suburbs.
Visit www.WhatRentMyHome.com.au for the latest median rents on other Brisbane suburbs or email me at karenb@beesnees.com.au if you’d like a rental market estimate for your property.
Tags: Brisbane rents, median rents Brisbane, rental supply Brisbane, Residential Tenancies Authority
Posted in Brisbane CBD | No Comments »
