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.
Tags: Brisbane house prices, Brisbane housing supply, Brisbane real estate agents, pricing strategy, selling a house Brisbane, selling an apartment Brisbane
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Posted by admin on 27 June 2011
Researchers BIS Shrapnel say Brisbane, Sydney and Perth will lead the nation for capital growth over the next three years, forecasting median house prices in the Sunshine State’s capital to rise 5% per annum.
They’ve released their Residential Property Prospects 2011-2014, tipping Brisbane to reach a median of $505,000 by mid 2014. They point to an undersupply of dwellings and the tightening of rental stock levels as strong indicators of growth. For Brisbane property owners the resources boom may be finally starting to benefit us:
“With economic conditions and income growth to be strongest in Western Australia and Queensland (and to a lesser extent New South Wales), this should underpin moderate price rises averaging 5% to 6% per annum in the three years to June 2014.”
Tags: BIS Shrapnel property research, Brisbane house prices, selling a house Brisbane, selling an apartment Brisbane
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Posted by admin on 21 June 2011
There’s an often forgotten key to the growth of Brisbane’s inner-city property market over the past 10 years. Those people we love to beat in rugby league have played a huge role in driving the development of many Brisbane apartment projects, especially during the early 2000’s. And the latest national house prices show New South Welshmen and women may soon be looking to spend their dollars north of the border again.
Sydney’s median house price stands at $515,000 and the graphs are fairly stable for Australia’s largest city. Their market has been solid. In Brisbane we’ve had a big slowdown in sales numbers and our median price is down to $430,000 – now a 24% discount on Sydney. After the busy sales market of 2007-2008 Brisbane was only 6% cheaper than the Cockroach Capital. We’re starting to look cheap.
Many of the Brisbane’s big apartment buildings really only proceeded during 2001-2004 due to strong sales to southern states’ investors. Local agents and developers will argue they had broad appeal – and many did once the market got going. But Sydney-siders especially got our wheels turning. They saw something in Brisbane that locals often couldn’t. Strong population growth, jobs creation through economic strength, the start of a more cosmopolitan and modern (Sydney-ish?) style of living, a sense of optimism and of course better weather.
And now that our prices are so much lower than their own we should expect renewed interest once again. Brisbane’s median house price is cheaper than every capital except Hobart and Adelaide. Yes, even Darwin is dearer. Dig a little amongst the recent sales in some new Brisbane projects and there’s already a pattern of interstate interest. Not all the moons are aligned as they were a decade ago, but with our rents rising and the resources boom driving our employment, NSW investors will find us more and more attractive.
Even if we beat them in the football!
Tags: Brisbane house prices, investment property, investor enquiry Brisbane, property management Brisbane
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Posted by admin on 30 May 2011
Plenty of real estate market watchers quote populations stats when “reading the tea leaves” for our industry. It makes sense that more people means greater housing demand. So some have pointed to slowing overseas migration as a warning sign for property prices. Here’s a handy reminder of the facts:
It takes some time for the ABS to release the data so the latest we have is for the year to Sept 30th 2010. And that showed net overseas migration down 40% on that same quarter a year earlier. That’s a sharp drop. But it also shows that our natural increase in population accounted for almost half of our population growth in the year. Australians stand proud, we’re amongst the best reproducers in the western world! And we’re getting pretty good at living longer too. So easing overseas arrivals won’t stop our growth.
And yes in case you missed it, our population grew 1.6% over that year – a jump of almost 350,000 (or twice the size of Townsville’s population) added to our numbers. Queensland’s resident numbers grew by almost 1,600 per week. So slower growth is still very strong growth.
Demographer Bernard Salt, writing in a recent Australian Newspaper column, remarks on the government’s own forecasts for continued growth. He points out that while the pollies talk about numbers dropping their own Federal budget papers show they’re still expecting net overseas migration to return to 180,000 next year.
If Dick Smith and the other ’small Australia’ proponents have any hope they’ll have to convince Australians to stop having babies. Good luck with that.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Bernard Salt, Brisbane house prices, Brisbane housing supply, Brisbane population growth
Posted in trends in Brisbane property | 1 Comment »
Posted by admin on 3 May 2011
Latest info from the RP Data Rismark Home Value report shows Brisbane’s house prices have been the worst performing of any capital city over the past year, with our median down 6.8% in the year to the end of March.
Make no mistake, this is a buyer’s market. And this news is being met by some smiling home buyers, eager to jump into the market.
‘On the ground’ we know there’s pockets of Brisbane where property is cheaper now than it’s been in at least a couple of years, while we’ve also seen some inner-city transactions happen at pretty much 2010 prices. Some of the better properties, especially those with strong locations, are still receiving multiple buyer enquiries. Like they do in any market, the quality properties still generate good interest.
None of us knows with any certainty what drives price changes. But our observation is that small price reductions have only happened in recent months where needed to get buyers to act. Conservatism reigns, the peer networks and bank manager/solicitors/adviser/butcher are all telling would-be buyers there’s bargains to be had. Make an offer, shop around. And with fewer buyers making their move some keen sellers have dropped their price to get a quick result.
So should buyers hold off for prices to drop further? We just don’t see any great pressure on sellers to go any lower. Some have to sell due to growing, shrinking and splitting households. There are no doubt some who have financial pressure – but we really aren’t witnessing much of it at all. (We’re not hearing of any job losses, ABS report savings levels up.) And yes many sellers now realise that if they sell and buy again in the same market it doesn’t really matter where prices are sitting. They’re getting on with their plans. Dropping a couple of percent to get buyers over the line. If the property’s well-promoted it rarely takes much more.
So buyers waiting for gun-at-the-head, high pressure, dump and run property prices, may well be disappointed. None of us can pick bottoms (or peaks) of markets with any accuracy and the danger is it will turn before you know it.
There’s some good buying to be had right now, often with less competition. For home buyers, especially in inner-Brisbane, this might be as good as it gets.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Brisbane house prices, buyer enquiry, home buyers Brisbane, RP Data, selling a house Brisbane, selling an apartment Brisbane
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Posted by admin on 1 April 2011
Westpac's Bill Evans
A really interesting seminar today with the Real Estate Institute of Queensland and guest speaker Bill Evans, Chief Economist with Westpac.
Bill says 95% of Queenslanders believe that interest rates are on the way up. We’re amongst the nation’s most pessimistic on this topic and a big number of us expect rate rises to exceed a full percentage point. But his forecasts point to just a 0.25% rise over the next 12 months. He says there’s “no way” we can expect a full 1%. Bill’s an economist and they do make mistakes in their forecasts – but he’s been in the same job for 20 years so you have to give him a bit of a hearing.
Interestingly when they survey on whether it’s a good time now to buy real estate, most of us say “absolutely yes”. But many of us don’t want to do it ourselves! Bill says memories of GFC job insecurities still linger and even with the mining boom happening under our noses here in Queensland many of us think it won’t benefit us personally.
He says underlying demand for housing is still very strong and any comparison to the US housing market is “fundamentally flawed”.
Tags: Bill Evans Westpac, Brisbane house prices, Brisbane housing supply, interest rates, Real Estate Institute of Queensland
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Posted by admin on 28 February 2011
A good friend has been looking to invest by buying a Brisbane property, but tells me his bank manager last week helped him change his mind. “He asked me if I really thought it was a good time to be buying. He didn’t seem sure that it was.”
So is it a good time to buy? We’d love to have your comments and some alternate views on these thoughts:
* Prices are generally flat and in some pockets even down a little. RP Data today reports that Brisbane’s median house price dropped 3.7% in the year to January.
* Incomes are solid and people are generally happy with their job security. Employment’s often referred to as a leading indicator of the property market.
* There’s very few forced property sales happening and it’s hard to see why prices would drop any further without employment problems.
* Interest rates are still historically low and don’t look like rising for some time yet.
* There’s a good choice of properties on the market and minimal competition from other buyers.
* Many of the places on the market are priced well. (Many sellers have worked out that if they’re buying again in the same market this can actually be a good time to move.)
* Economists says our debt levels are dropping. Many of us can afford to buy.
We’re not sure what needs to be added to this list! We understand we all like to follow a crowd when we make decisions and especially big ones like property purchases. But it’s hard to see how the timing could be better to buy Brisbane real estate.
Tags: Brisbane house prices, RP Data
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Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 8 February 2011
Floods, cyclones, bush fires… if we get a snowstorm we’ll have the full set.
This has been a start to a year unlike any I’ve seen before and home buyers and investors could be forgiven for being a little unsure of which way the market is heading. But interestingly the past two weeks has seen some of the busiest sales enquiry we’ve had to our agency in months. Maybe the Premier was right in saying we breed “tough north of the border”.
To help you make some sense of it all for Brisbane’s inner city property market, here’s a snapshot of some of the latest research commentary:
Westpac’s Chief Economist Bill Evans says interest rates will stay flat, maybe rising just a 0.25% by June 2012. At a seminar we attended this week he said the expected economic impact of the flood recovery has seen him jump his GDP forecast from 3.4% to 4.2% for 2011. He expects more than $2.5b to be spent on post flood works. Queensland’s exports remain strong and he has increased his growth expectation from 4.25% to 5% for the “sunshine” state. That seems a pretty impressive number.
Amongst a balanced range of comments he made the point that Australians are “de-leveraging” at a great rate, with our savings rate now higher than it’s been since the 1960’s. Housing affordability is not as big an issue as often proposed.
Population growth, or the cooling of its pace, has been raised as a question mark on demand. Local commentator Michael Matusik says Queensland grew by 89,000 in 2010, now a lower number than NSW and Victoria are getting. We’re not attracting the net migration we used to. But with 244 new people crossing the border each and every day (and many of them choosing inner-city Brisbane) it still seems a big number. And will Victorians and New South Welshmen stay put in future?
RP Data released 2010 stats showing Brisbane’s house price dropped 1% for the year. And amongst their data here’s the info we believe most home buyers and property investors should consider: During this past decade Brisbane’s house prices rose an average of 10.6% per annum. Over the past 5 years it was 6.6% per annum. We don’t know what they’ll do over the next 5 and 10 years and that’s exactly the point.
We were looking this morning at the true cost of owning an inner-Brisbane investment property and one real life example was $100 per week – or approx 1% of the apartment’s value. Tax deductions and strong rents shouldered much of the holding cost so if its value rises more than 1% that investor is ahead.
If you can “pick” an upcoming jump in the market you’re wiser than most. The rest of us might just recognise the long term view that’s served inner Brisbane property owners so well in the past.
Tags: Bill Evans Westpac, Brisbane house prices, Brisbane median home prices, interest rates, investment property deductions, Michael Matusik, RP Data
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Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 5 October 2010
It’s hard to write an attention-grabbing headline with words like “okay” and “normal” but that’s the best way to describe our view on the current sales market in Brisbane’s inner city. The luxury end might be a bit wobbly but for most property owners there are good results to be had if they sell.
There are buyers about, they are cautious, but where they see something they want they are making reasonably quick decisions and they are paying reasonable prices. It’s rare to hear of something selling cheaper than it might have done a year or two ago. Similarly we haven’t witnessed too many record-breaking results. Prices are okay and probably nudging up slightly.
One ‘typical-ish’ recent result: we sold an apartment last week for $45,000 more than its owners had paid just two years ago, a 13% gain.
So why then do some people say it’s not a good time to sell? Maybe because we’ve become so used to high growth! Researchers RP Data wrote an interesting report on the changes to Australia’s median prices over the past thirty years, and specifically looked at the gains in 5 year lumps. Our house prices jumped a whopping 13.9% per annum from 2000 to 2005 and then a solid 7.5% pa over the past five years.
So the “I’ll wait til my price jumps another $50,000 before I sell” approach is tempting. We’re in denial that the market might have returned to a period like the 1990’s when we had 2.8% per annum growth from 1990-95 and 5.2%pa from 1995 to 2000.
Every real estate agent prays for another boom, but worn as our knees might be, we’re still getting on with making sales and helping our clients move on with their plans.
Tags: Brisbane house prices, capital gains, RP Data
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Posted by admin on 5 August 2010
Everyone wants to know the value of their own house, or more importantly what the market is willing to pay for the property. What’s interesting about Woolloongabba is that despite its proximity to the city there have only been 6 sales since 2006 that have gone over the one million dollar mark.
That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of properties in the area that have the capability to reach the mark, it’s just that most of them haven’t been for sale for a number of years. Of those that have sold my favourite is a property on Albert Street that sold for $1.13 million back in 2006. It was on a large block and featured a combination of old world charm on the outside with a tastefully designed modern interior. The finishes were exceptional and I think the buyers got good value from a home that had been thoughtfully renovated.
From dealing with a number of buyers at the moment I’d suggest there is definitely potential for Woolloongabba houses to sell at $1m plus this year. We just need more people to sell!
Tags: Albert Street Woolloongabba, Brisbane house prices, Brisbane houses
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, Woolloongabba | No Comments »
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.
