Posted by admin on 1 December 2010
When we review the Residential Tenancies Authority’s stats each quarter we usually see what we expect: if it’s been quiet at Bees Nees with properties taking longer to rent, then official records usually show flat rents. But over the past few months, the reported data hasn’t been reflecting our on the ground experience. Our vacancy rate has been tiny (other agencies might have been a bit higher – they don’t have the talented team we do!) but the reported median rents haven’t risen.
Researchers BIS Shrapnel say Brisbane should expect annual rent rises of 5 to 7% over the next couple of years as housing supply struggles to keep up. ABS data shows housing approvals at a 15 month low. Any quick glance across Brisbane’s inner-city tells a story: there’s only a couple of cranes working on residential towers, new low-rise and townhouse projects are almost non-existent, and it’s been that way for most of the past 4 years.
There are some reasons to explain the flat rents to date, in spite of the lack of new housing. Population growth has slowed, international student numbers (a huge market for the CBD and immediate surround especially) have cooled a little, some tenants bought their own homes with the First Home Boost, and yes, we are putting more people into the same number of homes with 20-somethings staying at home, group households and sharing increasing etc.
But as incomes grow do you really think parents are going to let those kids freeload much longer? Mums and dads have waited a long time for that quiet home! And share households have a tolerance breaking point when that dishwashing-incapable toilet-seat-leaver-upper, smelly and inconsiderate flatmate just isn’t worth the rarely-paid-on-time rent!
It’s starting to look like there’s no more room at the Inn for Brisbane’s inner city tenant market, and BIS Shrapnel’s forecast would be a welcome reward for patient property investors in 2011.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, BIS Shrapnel property research, Brisbane apartments, Brisbane housing supply, Brisbane rents, Brisbane tenants, Brisbane vacancy rates, international students Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 5 October 2010
City Council has swooped on a number of overcrowded homes across the city including one in Lockhart Street, Woolloongabba. This house apparently had 15 students living in it when Council’s officers inspected.
Today’s Courier Mail reports the house was one of 298 raided since July.
Council has some fairly clear rules on numbers of people in each dwelling and if there’s more than 5 unrelated residents they have boarding house requirements that apply. There are some unscrupulous landlords out there who know they can make a quick buck renting rooms to international students. Many of these students are prepared to accept lower standards to save money.
Not real nice to live next door to these places either.
Tags: Brisbane City Council, Brisbane landlords, international students Brisbane, Lockhart Street Woolloongabba
Posted in Woolloongabba | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 3 August 2010
Why would both a government and an opposition look to dramatically reduce Australia’s fourth largest export industry? International students are big business for inner city Brisbane and if you’re a landlord or property owner in the area the current election threat to slice their number is likely to have a direct impact on you.
Generating revenue of $19 billion in 2009, a BRW Magazine report says Australia hosted 751,000 international students last year. Those who watch Brisbane’s CBD rental market closely will tell you much of our housing demand has been from this group. It’s no exaggeration to say that whole residential towers depend on students for survival. Take a walk down Albert Street yourself. And this isn’t a new trend.
Not to mention the food, travel, entertainment, retail and other industries that benefit. Many of these students are great spenders! Access Economics estimate that for every $1 on education they spend $1.90 elsewhere. Brisbane’s Lord Mayor says this is our city’s largest export service industry and Universities Australia’s CEO says a 50% drop in international students would cost us 60,000 jobs. But Labor’s Sustainable Population Minister says cuts in numbers are warranted and many use their student visas as a “pathway for permanent residency”. The LNP’s Tony Abbott says they’re the “largest contributor to net overseas migration”.
Politics and race aside this is big business for inner Brisbane and especially for property owners. Yes the trend to inner city living is strong but a big chunk of our demand is from international students, especially in the CBD itself. Drop them and we may see a big reduction in rents.
What do you think? We’d love to have your comments.
Tags: Brisbane apartments, Brisbane rents, international students Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane CBD, Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market, trends in Brisbane property | 4 Comments »
Posted by admin on 16 October 2009
an artist's impression
We’re big fans of the Southbank Institute of Technology. There’s more than 30,000 students and staff at their campus here and that’s a whopping demand for housing. And their current redevelopment is having a positive impact on South Brisbane in many ways.
But early in the new year their new accommodation facility will open, with a breathtaking 713 rooms. This is the equivalent of a 400 apartment development (that would usually be made up of 1 and 2 bedroom floorplans) so it will be the inner south’s largest residential building by a country mile. (The next largest is Arbour on Grey with 172 apartments).
And while we support the Institute’s need to house its students, including the 2,500 here from other nations, we just wonder what impact this whopping 13 storey facility will have on local landlords.
Our local rents have not gone up this year and some tenants have seen their rents actually drop. And with the new Institute facility being run by an independent operator they’re not just offering rooms to students – inner city workers are being targeted as well.
The good news for landlords is the rooms aren’t cheap. An ensuited bedroom in a 6 room apartment (i.e. sharing a kitchen and smallish living area with 5 others) starts at $265/week. The building is obviously well-located right at the doorstep of South Bank, but there’s no breath-taking facilities on offer. The designs look efficient while not exciting.
According to the building’s operator Brisbane’s international students are still booming in number with QUT’s intake up 18% this year for example. They’ve no doubt done their homework. In the short term though inner south landlords might just have to hold their rents a little while this massive new supply is soaked up.
Tags: Brisbane rents, international students Brisbane, QUT Brisbane, Southbank Institute of Technology Brisbane, student tenants Brisbane, The Arbour on Grey South Bank
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market, South Brisbane and South Bank | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 16 September 2009
Interesting but not surprising news today that Brisbane City Council has uncovered a student share house with 37 occupants. Yes, in the one house!
Brisbanetimes.com.au reports a raid on the Sunnybank Hills home discovered the student-slum, part of a city-wide crackdown on over-crowded residential dwellings. Such a big number in one house is unusual but we’d suggest ‘extended households’ aren’t surprising anymore, especially in our inner city. International students particularly are more open to sharing small spaces. They don’t have big rent budgets and they don’t crave privacy the way many locals do.
For Council there’s some obvious problems with noise, fire risks, extra carparking and waste and rubbish volumes. For landlords the wear and tear on a property will obviously be more significant.
Some landlords are happy to wear this, often exploiting tenants and achieving above-market rent by encouraging or turning a blind eye to the practice. They need to be careful though, with fines of up to $100,000 if they exceed BCC’s new limit of 5 “unrelated” occupants in any one home.
So how do we as property managers police this issue? With difficulty, is the truth. We do scrutinise tenancy applications carefully (e.g. 2 students rarely intend to cover the rent on their own for a 3 bedroom with heaps of spare space), a previous rental history/reference always a good indicator of what they’ll do. The Act requires us to give 7 days notice to inspect so unless there’s an emergency we can’t do a surprise inspection. When we do check on a property we can count toothbrush numbers for example, but even experienced property managers will find it hard to be sure if there’s ‘hidden’ occupants.
The best way to avoid this problem is to get good rental references from their past agents/landlords. It’s no guarantee the tenants won’t move 9 of their best friends into the home, but it is some peace of mind.
If your property is vacant and you’re faced with a choice of reducing the rent or accepting a tenant with limited rental references, what should you do? Does every tenant deserve the ‘presumption of innocence’? Each landlord should make their own choice but for me, I’d drop the rent.
Tags: Brisbane City Council, international students Brisbane, property maintenance, property management Brisbane, routine inspections, student tenants Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 12 November 2008
As agents we’ve often thought it ironic how home-buyers tell us they’re after a place with a sense of community, where neighbours know their name, somewhere to feel they are included and “belong”. Whole housing estates and apartment buildings are marketed for this appeal. Yet once people move in to their dwellings they often install privacy fencing, black-out curtains and wait til after dark to take out the rubbish, lest they should bump into those loud-music-playing inconsiderates. (Admit it, you have!) Aussies would even prefer bikies living next door to a “nosy nanna”, according to a www.realestate.com.au survey!
With many of us struggling to share it won’t surprise you that recent stats show most Australian households have lots of spare bedrooms. Lots and lots of them. According to the ABS 78% of homes have at least one spare bedroom. A generation or two ago it was commonplace for widows and others to have a “lodger” or boarder living in. There was an acceptance that the extra income offset any inconvenience of hosting them, and in an era when for example women weren’t as accepted in the workplace, this was a handy solution. Male lodgers also took care of the ‘male’ jobs around the home, like lawn-mowing…
For those happy to share their homes there’s a massive market on offer in Brisbane’s inner city today. Largely driven by the international student boom and a critical housing shortage some home owners are earning up to $200 per week per student, providing little more than a modest room and amenities. Many of our Universities and TAFE’s run home-stay schemes to match owners and room-seekers. The ABS says a massive 98% of couple households have spare bedrooms so this housing ’supply’ can be turned on pretty quickly. Instead of filling the empty nest with Chihuahuas and poodles this gives home owners the option of some human company (and money).
And the feedback from home owners we’ve talked to? For the most part these are positive experiences with great friendships made. One couple told us they’d travelled to visit former lodgers in their home countries. Another said their children kept in touch with previous home-stayers on Skype, and were hoping to study in that country after school. Maybe we need to put our distrust of strangers aside a little. Our homes are still getting bigger, we want the 42″ plasma today and we don’t want to live in the ‘burbs. So putting a lodger into the room at the end of the hallway might be a happy compromise.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, international students Brisbane, www.realestate.com.au
Posted in trends in Brisbane property | 1 Comment »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 29 November 2006
Much has been written in recent years about the trend to city living in Brisbane, and across Australia. Brisbane’s CBD and surrounding suburbs have witnessed extraordinary population growth since 2000, most easily seen in the residential towers transforming our skyline. What’s not often acknowledged is the impact on this trend by growing international student numbers. Australia is currently home to some 355,000 student visa holders and this has grown 25% since 2002 alone. Queensland accommodates around a quarter of these, so naturally there’s enormous benefits to Brisbane’s rental market.
The resident manager of one CBD ’super-tower’ recently told us around two-thirds of their new tenants were international students. With most of Brisbane’s education campuses located in the inner city this is where international students come to live and study. We’d argue they’re in many ways underpinning the CBD rental market in particular.
China has more than 83,000 students in Australia, while India and South Korea contribute large numbers and all three are fast growing markets. Our ‘traditional’ student nations of Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are dropping slightly as competition for this lucrative market increases, but interestingly Australia’s appeal to non-Asian nations seems to be on the up – student numbers from Brazil (up 45%) and the Middle East (up 34%) rose sharply this past year.
With international education making up such a large market for Brisbane’s inner city rentals its fortunes certainly deserve more attention from those who’ve invested in the area. Both the UK and USA have seen slight reductions in their own international student inflows over the past year (5% and 1.3% respectively) but for now all looks good in Australia: our numbers grew 9.5% in the year to September.
Tags: Brisbane rents, international students Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane CBD, Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market, trends in Brisbane property | 2 Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 2 November 2006
With Brisbane’s demand for tourism and business accommodation bounding ahead we’re now seeing an interesting industry ‘takeover’. In a $7million deal Oaks Hotels and Resorts has bought the management rights to the new “Charlotte Towers” and its 416 apartments in the CBD. Corporate managers of the larger apartment buildings aren’t unusual but the move to effectively convert buildings designed for long term residents into short stay accommodation is raising a few eyebrows.
The Oaks Group is the most visible operator with this latest acquisition now its 5th in Brisbane’s CBD: it recently added the 253 apartment “Felix” and the 136 apartment “212 On Margaret” to its portfolio.
The move should be no surprise: Brisbane’s hotel room supply is not keeping up and the cost and lead time to build a new one means tempting existing apartment owners is the best option. But where do the long term tenants go? And how do the owner-residents feel about sharing their lift with holiday-makers? Brisbane’s own residents who’ve moved to the city heart in recent years, along with the very strong international student market are now been forced further afield. We’re seeing a clear trend to city fringe areas with stronger than usual demand for suburbs like South Brisbane, Toowong and Newstead.
The final irony? Many of this city’s older hotels and studio apartments are being used for permanent accommodation, often with 2-3 students occupying one small room in a bid to save money! So where now for the budget hotel guests!?
Tags: 212 on Margaret Brisbane, body corporate issues Queensland, Charlotte Towers Brisbane, Felix Apartments Brisbane, international students Brisbane, Oaks Hotels and Resorts
Posted in Brisbane's rental market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
When we review the Residential Tenancies Authority’s stats each quarter we usually see what we expect: if it’s been quiet at Bees Nees with properties taking longer to rent, then official records usually show flat rents. But over the past few months, the reported data hasn’t been reflecting our on the ground experience. Our vacancy rate has been tiny (other agencies might have been a bit higher – they don’t have the talented team we do!) but the reported median rents haven’t risen.
