A new report shows Brisbane tenants are paying $10 per week more in rent.
Bees Nees Research Managing Director, Rob Honeycombe says Brisbane’s rents rose for both apartments and houses during the March quarter. Residential Tenancies Authority stats released today show upward pressure on rents right across Brisbane’s suburbs.
“People will point to the January floods as the reason for rents rising, and some heavily-effected suburbs did have spikes in their rents. A 2 bedroom apartment in St Lucia for example jumped $20 per week, with many apartments still damaged at the start of the University year. But other flood-impacted areas like Rosalie, Milton and Paddington actually saw a drop of $5 per week.”
“We’d argue the trend was already in place for increases to rents. Without new construction in recent years the market was always going to catch up and we now have a rental housing shortage. Brisbane tenants have had pretty flat rents for over 2 years but their rents are now definitely on the rise”.
A median 3 bedroom Brisbane house now rents for $390 per week, while a 2 bedroom apartment is $375.
“One clear impact of the floods was that unless tenants had to move, they stayed put. Turnover was lower than for the same period in 2010, especially in inner-city suburbs where there were 7% less new bonds lodged this past quarter.”
If 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.
By nature, I’m cynical. I hear the nation’s not officially in recession and I’ve been reading the reports about price growth in Brisbane property. RP Data’s Tim Lawless said yesterday the “latest results herald a national residential market recovery.” But after owning my St Lucia apartment for 22 years I was always going to be slow in making the decision to sell.
Many buyers go in search of the “worst home, best street” believing the value of those around them will pull their own home’s price up. A relatively new problem is the apartment owner who renovates but finds their fellow body corporate members reluctant to shell out for any external works. Around Brisbane’s inner suburbs this is a common problem: a 1970’s or 80’s vintage home unit gutted by a keen new owner and given a new lease of life, only to have its value and appeal limited by the very original lobbies, gardens and common areas. In St Lucia there’s a recent, typical example: built in 1979 the bedrooms and living areas of this building’s apartments are spacious, and it’s an elevated and central location. Great renovator ingredients. But buyer expectations of that era have been long surpassed, so walking through a basement to get to apartments is not real popular today, and there’s no security or gated entry of any sort.
An important milestone for inner city infrastructure with the December 17th opening of the new Elanor Schonell Bridge linking Dutton Park with St Lucia’s University of Queensland campus. It provides a long awaited extra access point to UQ, hopefully reducing the massive traffic flows past the city each day and along roads like Coronation Drive as more than 30,500 students and staff make their way to the Uni.
