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Posts Tagged with Brisbane median home prices

Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 31 October 2011

How do you know when the market has bottomed? Only once prices go back up. So today’s announcement from RP Data that Brisbane dwelling prices went up 0.4% in September could be a positive sign for our local market. According to the new stats Brisbane has a median price of $415,000 and RP Data’s Tim Lawless says “Housing market conditions are starting to show some green shoots now.” He says that across the nation’s capitals the September data is the best we’ve seen since February.

Brisbane real estate agents ready to call a start to the next boom might do well to take a close look at the numbers. The September gain in our median dwelling price followed a 0.4% drop in August so year on year we’re still down 6.1%.

No matter how you spin it though you’d have to say this is a good time to buy.

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Posted in Brisbane's sales market | 1 Comment »

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 6 September 2011

It’s hard to imagine a time when we didn’t have full-streaming real estate data bombarding us. Now there’s a number of national and local commentators producing emails, blogs, newsletters, reports and updates. So to help you digest it all here’s a Cook’s tour of the latest:

RP Data say Brisbane’s dwelling prices went down 0.4% in July (or $1,700) for a total 6.6% dip over the past 12 months. Brisbane unit owners can punch the air – your median price apparently rose 0.4% in July, while house-owners lost 0.6%.  Their Tim Lawless says the upper end of the capital city markets is being hardest hit and times on market have increased across the board.  “If these soft trends persist, the Spring Selling Season is likely to open up some attractive investment opportunities for prospective buyers. In contrast, the selling environment is likely to be challenging for vendors, particularly if they have unrealistic price expectations,” Mr Lawless said.

Analyst Michael Matusik says the data suggests the worst may be behind us, with the monthly and quarterly results starting to trend upwards. “Even Brisbane, with the impact of the recent flood weighing down its property market, has fallen just 2.6% or by $11,600 since January.  The Australian sharemarket can fall more than this in a single day.” Matusik says most property owners are still ahead. “Just one in 14 resales across Australia over the last decade made a loss. Importantly, close to half of the sellers since early 2000 made an annual gain of over 10% per annum.  Keep in mind that capital growth can be deceptive as most measures exclude inflation, costs, taxes and charges.  But still, such a positive result is encouraging.”

And first home buyer may be back in the market and taking advantage of good buying. Home loan approvals from first-home buyers jumped to 35% in June, compared with an average of 27%, according to mortgage broker Mortgage Choice. Mortgage Choice says a drop in first-home buyers during the last financial year made it hard for existing home owners to sell before moving onto their next property. Mortgage Choice CEO Michael Russell attributed the fall in numbers to the ending of the boosted first-home owners’ grant, which he says brought forward purchases in 2009 and 2010.

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Posted by admin on 10 August 2011

For this week’s newsletter we just wanted to share the graph below from www.myRP.com.au. This charts the changes in Brisbane’s median prices over the past 10 years. When the line’s above zero prices were going up. Below the line is when we’ve had drops in values.

The media love stories about booms and crashes. As home owners, or would-be home owners, we often fret and stress over the ups and downs of the market. Right now many Brisbane property owners are postponing major changes in their lives because prices are down. They won’t move home until they go back up. Or they won’t sell til they get more than the last sale in their neighbourhood.

In the context of a single year’s market the current changes in price can seem enormous. But maybe this graph will help some readers see things in a different light, a new perspective. It’s a nice reminder that things are still pretty good.

And at worst it’s a pretty graph!

graph courtesy myRP.com.au

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Posted in Brisbane's sales market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 1 July 2011

It’s a bit early for real estate agents to start popping champagne, but a new report says we had a 0.2% rise in our median price for the month of May. RP Data-Rismark’s data shows our prices may have bottomed. For the March – May quarter they report a drop of 1.5% so while that May increase might not seem like a big number it’s fairly encouraging!

On the ground this feels right to us. Many sellers are withdrawing from sale and, while buyers are still hesitant, wise heads amongst them say the current prices look like great value.

National valuation firm HTW says this is a time to buy. “Our staff are daily surprised by the seemingly affordable property on offer all around the place and if ever there were a time to have a lazy half million, it would be now. You would find yourself very comfortably looking in a number of areas that seemed until recently out of reach. Think inner city hotspots driven by the café lifestyle.”

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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.

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Posted by admin on 30 July 2010

We attended a Macquarie Bank seminar this week where their Rod Cornish detailed historical stats and some forecasts on our property market. One tidbit that stood out was this gem: in the past 25 years Brisbane’s annual median house price went down just twice. In 1993 and in 2009. So in 23 of 25 years our median price went up.

There’s good reason residential property is considered “safe as houses”.

Ask a banker which security they’ll lend on. Residential property is king to them. We understand the merit of a balanced portfolio but do sometimes wonder if some investors have simply forgotten the strength of property?

For those of us too time-poor to track and research, property doesn’t rely on scientific analysis to determine the right time to buy or sell. Rismark’s Christopher Joye says price volatility of property is just 3 or 4% compared with 19% for shares. It’s no surprise you may be feeling giddy watching the All Ords of late.

Matusik Property Insight’s Michael Matusik says Australians on average hold 80% equity in their dwellings, and higher for their principal place of residence. There’s no great risk in that and shows the strength of our nation compared to others. Our love affair with bricks and mortar does continue, even if some of us have had a wandering eye in recent years.

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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!

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Posted by admin on 18 December 2009

Our MD Rob writes a regular column for the property pages of OurBrisbane.com Here’s the latest:

Brisbane apartmentIf life is like a box of chocolates, Brisbane’s inner city is the variety pack! Property investors can choose from modern studio apartments for $140,000 or six-pack style apartments from the 1970’s for $350,000. Modern high-rise apartments range from $350,000 to $7 million. Or for those who crave their own piece of dirt, houses are generally priced from $500,000 upwards.

As a property investor do you see yourself as a small business person? You should. Your annual rental income will likely be $25,000 or more, so it’s worth having a good hard look at the rental marketplace and working out what product offering you’re going to make.

Some people dream of owning a riverfront penthouse, but for rental returns they’re lousy. There are not many tenants wanting to spend $2000 per week. Median priced homes are the safest territory as this is where the majority of people live. Around the CBD and surrounding suburbs the going rate is $430-$520/week for a 2-bedroom apartment. Have a look at www.WhatRentMyHome.com.au for median rents in all inner city suburbs.

Tenants don’t have the long term focus of a buyer, so while future improvements like new bridges, tunnels or new shops are all a key part of your capital gain plans, they’re not going to earn more rent for you today. A suburb like Woolloongabba might not earn top rent today, but what if that new subway goes ahead with a station in the suburb linking it directly to the CBD’s Riverside Centre?

We see investing in property as a balancing act, capital gains being the main aim and rental returns important to your holding costs.

So why choose the inner city over a modern house in the ‘burbs? Like many purchasing decisions your location choice is probably more about your own needs than the final property you buy. Is it a set-and-forget investment where you have minimal involvement? Or do you want to add value to the property by spending your weekends labouring at plastering walls or back-breaking paint work? (Okay so I’m giving away some bias here!). Your decision will vary too if you’ll want to make the place your own home one day.

What the inner city clearly offers investors is Brisbane’s largest rental market. We survey tenants regularly and a home’s proximity to their workplace always ranks highly in their decision making.

The CBD is our largest workplace by a country mile, with St Lucia’s University campus also a massive pool of potential tenants. We don’t believe rental returns will make you rich but, for peace of mind, keeping your cash input to a minimum, and simply having the largest choice of potential occupants, it’s hard to beat the inner city.

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Posted in Brisbane CBD, Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market, Brisbane's sales market, Woolloongabba | No Comments »