Thursday, October 13, 2016

Air Space and Common Property

A recent High Court decision supports a decision by a body corporate that did not allow an owner of an apartment in Noosa to join two balconies.  Doing so would appropriate air space which is common property.  The law in Queensland requires such an appropriation of common property to be approved by a vote of all owners without dissent.  If the body corporate in a vote denies that approval, and such a decision is unreasonable, then it can be overturned.  Here, the High Court said it was not unreasonable to deny an application by an owner to appropriate common property air space.

See High Court decision and this good article.

In contrast, see this recent decision where a body corporate's denial was found to be unreasonable.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Brisbane Rental Yields

The resale market for apartments in Brisbane at present is slow.  There are bargains if you are buying, and it is taking a long time to sell if you are a seller, and often the seller is disappointed with the sales price. 

At present, for apartments in Brisbane that are being sold resale (that is, not by the developer off the plan), the sales prices are decreasing.  Rents are also decreasing, as there is an oversupply.  This is a generalisation, and does not apply to all apartment types or all areas.

I have recently studied the Indooroopilly area.  The gross rental yields are good.  For reasonable quality 2 bedroom apartments, prices have dropped about 10 to 15%.  So apartment that were selling for $485K to $530K last year are now selling in the range of $425K to $500K, with most sales being about $450K to $465K.  Some vendors are selling for more than $100,000 less than what they paid.  The rents for these apartments have dropped from a range of $520 to $560 a week to $480 to $510 a week.  New developments with smaller but modern apartments are doing promotions such as 4 weeks free rent.  On an apartment that I own in Indooroopilly, I am getting a gross yield of 5.7% , where the lease was signed last week.  

Small city apartments are struggling, esp those that are rented in short term rental pools.  I have seen one apartment building in an Accor rental pool where net returns (after rates and body corporates etc) on large one bedroom furnished apartments have dropped from $13,000 a year to less than $5,000 a year.