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Welcome to Spring Hill!

I’m the Bees Nees team member who specialises in this energetic suburb, and in the posts below you’ll find plenty of info about the area and its property market. If you’d like recent stats on the local market download our research team’s Spring Hill “Market in a Nutshell”

Rob Honeycombe
ps: What would your property sell for? Please give me a buzz on 0423 332 022 or read more about me.

Posted by admin on 20 January 2012

Local rents were flat in the second half of 2011, according to new stats released by the Residential Tenancies Authority. The median rent for a 2 bedroom apartment remained at $560 per week during both the September and December quarters, reflecting the quieter rental market and caution from landlords.

Rents are down slightly ($15) on the same time a year earlier but as the graphs show the trend is slowly upwards. Postcode 4000 remains Brisbane most expensive by a big margin and strong corporate demand for serviced apartments means supply to the long-term tenant market remains very limited. The local rental pool grew by just 2 homes in the December quarter.

January has started with a real rush and enquiry to our office from tenants is the busiest we’ve seen in some years. We’re expecting the RTA data will show 2012 starting as a great year for local investors.

Note: this RTA data is collated by postcode so includes new bonds lodged throughout 4000 including Brisbane CBD.

If you would like  a rental appraisal for your property just give our head of Property Management – Annie von Rudzinksi a call on 07 3214 6899.

For median rent information visit http://www.whatrentmyhome.com.au/

Posted in Spring Hill, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 5 October 2011

The media’s had a good run at would-be Queensland Premier Cambell “Can-Do” Newman over the past week, with accusations of non-disclosure of family assets. And a Leichhardt Street apartment project was amongst the items raised by Labor with claims Newman’s family stand to make millions from the sales.

We won’t weigh into the politcial debate but here’s one observation from a local real estate agent: there doesn’t look to be much happening with this project and the idea that anyone will make millions from it (at least in the next couple of years) looks pretty unlikely to us. The Spring Hill apartments were launched to the market almost 2 years ago and at the time they said construction would be completed by “mid 2011″. We don’t see any action on the site yet…

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Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 28 September 2011

Spring Hill real estate is going up in value. We don’t mean the prices of homes that are being sold today, but rather the value of the ‘typical’ Spring Hill home. This is one of the interesting things to watch in a suburb like this: many, many homes undergo major renovations but the offical stats on local house prices are only measured on the ones that transact. If it doesn’t sell it doesn’t get counted. So the ‘typical’ Spring Hill house is changing, just below the radar of all those market commentators.

I took this shot down behind Birley Street and these are the sort of renovations that make a huge difference to the value of a home. It’s almost incorrect to call it a renovation – more a re-build. And once home-owners finish these sort of works they tend to stay in that home for a long time. Spring Hill real estate agents despair at the thought – but many home owners are here to stay!

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Posted in Spring Hill, architecture and renovation, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 25 September 2011

While real estate market-watching’s become a national sport, it’s hard to call any strong price trend in Spring Hill’s market so far this year. Our median sales prices are down on last year, but have retained much of the growth of the last decade. The number of transactions continues to below – the 2nd quarter of 2011 has been busier  than the first but we’ve still had less than 100 apartment sales in the first half of this year. Overall buyer enquiry is sound and while prices aren’t setting records there are still sales to be had for those who want them. House sales volumes are so low as to make the median price data fairly meaningless. We do know that many house owners are holding off selling until prices improve.

If you’d like a sales market update for your property please call our Spring Hill specialist, Rob Honeycombe on 0423 332 022 or 07 3214 6800

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Posted by admin on 21 July 2011

Rents rose strongly in the June quarter, our median 2 bed apartment rising $40 to a record $580 per week. The downturn in international students at the start of 2011
had slowed the market but a resurgent corporate demand has seen us achieve some great results for landlords. The supply of rental homes in this postcode is slowly starting to rise again, but we’re still below the levels of 2 years ago.  The CBD’s record rents are steadily encouraging tenants to look up the hill and, while affordability is affecting some tenants, Spring Hill landlords are benefiting.

Note: RTA stats quoted here cover all of postcode 4000 including Spring Hill and Brisbane CBD

If you would like  a rental appraisal for your property just give our head of Property Management – Annie von Rudzinksi a call on 07 3214 6899.

For median rent information visit www.whatrentmyhome.com.au



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Posted in Brisbane CBD, Spring Hill | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 28 June 2011

We are constantly being bombarded by stats on everything these days. Here is another that will surprise you. We are currently hearing in the media that there are more listings on the market now than last year (some commentators speculating that there are 30% more in Brisbane) but in Spring Hill this is NOT the case.

I have just done a count on realestate.com and as of today there are currently 79 listings (apartments and houses) which are not either under contract or sold. This number fluctuates from week to week but I watch it every day and over the last 12 months the numbers are virtually identical with 81 listings on the market this time last year.

More surprisingly is the fact that as of today also only 11 out of the 79 have open homes advertised for this weekend or approx 14% that’s 1 in 7, the others all have call for an appointment. We all know that a lot can’t have open homes for various reasons including being in a hotel pool, owners preferring private viewings and so on. It is clear that a lot of these properties aren’t really for sale at all, at least not at the advertised price as many have been advertised with no adjustments for 6 months + and are clearly not being actively marketed and it appears that both the agent and the owner has given up on the sale.

Owners in this position have comments such as “oh well it’s not costing me anything to have it on the market”. WRONG!!! Clearly they are not doing themselves or the complex (in the case of apartments) any service whatsoever and should either get serious about their sale and actively market and price it correctly, or simply take it off the market. Simple supply and demand economics dictates more supply the cheaper the price, less demand the cheaper the price. Owners either get serious or at least shift the supply line to the left and prices, guess what? They go up.

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Posted by admin on 23 April 2011

One thing that graphs do really well is illustrate trends, and the simplest analysis of the charts below show that supply of rental housing in the city is not coming online in big enough numbers. In fact there’s now less homes available for rent in postcode 4000 than there were 2 years ago. We’d suggest it’s only the easing of demand from international students that’s kept a relative lid on rents so far. They’ve been a huge part of our CBD demand for some years so the drop in student numbers this past 6 months could have seen a dip in rents. But it’s now over 2 years since we saw any residential building completed in the area and rents have held firm.

Watch this space over the next quarter - CBD, fully furnished apartments especially have seen some really strong rents achieved over the past couple of weeks.

Go to www.WhatRentMyHome.com.au to see current median rents for other Brisbane suburbs. Note: RTA stats quoted here cover all of postcode 4000 including Spring Hill.

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Posted by admin on 11 April 2011

I was driving past St Joseph’s today and noticed a hive of activity with reconstruction and updating going on at this prestigious Gregory Terrace school. It’s one of the rare construction jobs underway in Spring Hill at the moment, with no major residential or office buildings coming out of the ground. It’s now 2 years since we had a substantial building completed and I’d suggest that’s more to do with the lack of available land than developers not showing interest in the suburb.

There’s plenty of house extensions and renos happening though so that should keep the tradies smiling for the time being!

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Posted by admin on 19 January 2011

You have to keep your sense of humour! Photo by Brad Marsellos

Many out of town clients have been asking for resources to get a better understanding of what Brisbane suburbs actually flooded. Here’s some handy links:

Aerial photography of Brisbane floods – use the box in the top left to choose the street and suburb you’re interested in, just be careful to choose January 13th as the date you need. Not all parts of Brisbane were shot on that date, and of course the pics aren’t necessarily the exact moment of maximum inundation for all properties. But a great site to bookmark for the future.

Also try this ABC News page for interactive before and afters.

If you’re on Facebook this collection has over 1,800 reader contributed photos, many of them an amazing record that could only be captured by the people in and amongst the flooding.

One of the better YouTube compilation videos of the Brisbane flooding.

And go to Flickr for one of the biggest collections of photos, with many showing flooded Brisbane homes.

Brisbane City Council has been excellent at keeping residents informed through the crisis.

Please make a contribution to the Premier’s Flood Appeal, however small, to assist the victims. And if you’re a business owner wanting to do your bit please go to www.flooddiscounts.com.au , a great way tooffer something to residents who are going through tough times.

Read more of our posts on the 2011 Brisbane floods.

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Posted in Dutton Park, Highgate Hill, Inner Brisbane events, South Brisbane and South Bank, Spring Hill, West End, Woolloongabba | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 19 January 2011

and the clean up begins

A reported 11,900 Brisbane homes were completely flooded last week, with another 14,700 partially flooded. So naturally there’s some panic that Brisbane is about to have a severe housing crisis. If you’ve been forced from your home this is a heartwrenching time and our thoughts are very much with those residents.

But in looking at the potential rental demand we just don’t believe the numbers of inner-city tenants looking for a new dwelling is anywhere near as high as they’re being reported.

Estimates had to be given, no-one can physically check every home and we don’t know the source of the Courier Mail’s data. But according to a spreadsheet on their website South Brisbane for example had 2,132 residential properties either fully or partially flooded. But out there on the ground we just can’t find them! There’s no lines of debris on the footpaths, no army assistance and little of that muddy stench that’s already the tell-tale of a submerged Brisbane street. Brisbane CBD has 1,199 residential dwellings inundated according to the list but most, if not all, of these will be highrise towers.

A number of buildings had some water into their basements and the limited access and power outages are a pain in the backside. A number of these residents have had to seek short-term accommodation. But how many will need new homes? In perhaps many inner-Brisbane suburbs, the numbers may be a lot less than anticipated.

The RTA yesterday released their rental data for the December quarter and it shows many inner-Brisbane suburbs have already had a small rent rise, something we’ve seen amongst our rentals for some weeks now. January and February are our peak leasing months, especially near the universities, and we were expecting a rise in rents before the floods.

Short-term accommodation will be strained to capacity, and rents will see some solid growth. But in our view landlords shouldn’t count on skyrocketing rents as a result of the floods.

To see the latest median rental data for your suburb (choose your bedroom number and dwelling type)  go to www.WhatRentMyHome.com.au

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Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market, Dutton Park, Highgate Hill, South Brisbane and South Bank, Spring Hill, West End, Woolloongabba, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

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