A new Riverpoint apartment at West End failed to sell at a high profile Ray White auction. The highest bid was $3.5M. This is less than $4000 a sqm.
This apartment is back from the river, with terrace houses and a pool between the apartment building and the river. See Auction video.
There are a number of apartments for sale in Riparian (71 Eagle Street) at present.
A reader forwarded me an interesting email chain with an agent, about this advertisement for resale of an off-the-plan apartment in Riverpoint in West End.
DEVELOPER Australand will this month begin marketing its $160 million Brisbane apartment development -- to be built on the heritage-listed site where the city's first immigrants arrived in 1887.
The 167 apartments are planned for the Yungaba House site at Kangaroo Point, an exclusive pocket of inner-city real estate on the banks of the Brisbane River.
The development, which has been hotly opposed by the Yungaba Action Group, involves three new apartment buildings as well as the conversion of historic Yungaba House immigration centre into 10 luxury residences. According to selling agents Colliers International, this month's scheduled release of off-the-plan apartments comes at a time of huge pent-up demand from buyers.
"In a Brisbane market paralysed by the credit crunch, buyers have had very limited off-the-plan options," said residential director Ben Langfield said.
"The launch of Yungaba comes at a time when buyers are crying out for a slice of inner-city living."
Built in 1887 as an immigration reception centre, Yungaba accepted its first six residents at the end of that year from the migrant ship the Duke of Buccleuch. Australand Queensland general manager Nigel Edgar said the project, which included the construction of a public multicultural centre, would unlock lost heritage and give residents an opportunity to live in one of Brisbane's most exclusive inner-city areas.
However, Australand's plans have not impressed the Yungaba Action Group, which says the planned multicultural centre is not an acceptable substitute for a building that was the gateway to Queensland.
The Kangaroo Point development, on a 1.9ha site bought by Australand in 2003, will be a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments as well as double-storey sky homes.
"BRISBANE: Unit prices in an an exclusive city residential tower continue to soar in the face of economic crisis, and cashed-up investors are lining up for a piece of the action.
The Riparian Plaza in Eagle St houses three of the inner-city’s most expensive residential properties sold last year, and their values were up 27 per cent compared to similar properties sold at the same time in 2007."
See City NewsMirvac's Tennyson Reach project sold extremely well to start, but sales appear to have stalled. There are six apartment buildings planned for the site, at Tennyson in Brisbane on the same site as the Queensland Tennis Centre. Although more than 65,000 tennis spectators attended the recent tournament last week, no apartments were sold during the event.
The first two apartment buildings on the site, containing 115 apartments released in June 2007, sold out in three days. Prices ranged from $943,000 to $4.9M. These two buildings should be read for occupancy in the next 5 months.
The third building, currently for sale off the plan, has 92 apartments. Released in December 2007, 70 apartments still remain for sale. Originally marketed with a minimum price of $805,000, the minimum advertised price has now been reduced to $698,000.
According to the AFR, Mirvac plans to release building 4 at the end of 2009.
There are more than 10 resales listed on RealEstate.com.au. These include:
My guess is that these prices will drop, as a number of owners will not want to or can't settle, and rents for these apartments will be luck to be more than $800 a week.
Riverbend Tower was supposed to be an all rental building. However, it appears that the developer has now decided to sell some of the apartments.
Example pricing:
The Council has issued a plan for urban renewal in the wharf area under the Story Bridge. It looks like an excellent plan, and my guess is that it will increase the value of the apartments in the Admiralty precinct. It is called the Howard Smith Wharves redevelopment.
A friend forwarded an email to me, recently received from Pradella, that included the following:
"Pradella have adjusted the pricing of some of the apartments in ‘Reach’ at Waters Edge. We have now sold 50 apartments, but we need to keep moving toward our pre sales targets, hence the pricing adjustments. The 1 beds have not been adjusted, but some of the 2 bed plus 1 bath, and 2 bed plus 2 bath have, and there are some very good buys to be had."
My guess is that no construction will commence until there are about 100 pre-sales.
"WEST END: Riverside apartment dwellers are banding together in a bid to give their direction on the future shape of the community. More than 30 residents from the Flow, Koko, Leftbank and Tempo complexes have met to discuss the need to build a sense of community in the area. Regatta Apartments body corporate chairman Paul Rees said they hoped to build a liveable community, not only for apartment dwellers but the whole of West End.
“We’re planning a series of regular events to build community in our area and the first event will be a breakfast in Riverside Park on Sunday, December 7 at 9am,” Mr Rees said.
He said they invited local, state and federal representatives as well as community groups and property developers to attend the breakfast to hear their ideas. Among residents’ concerns are building heights, closing Riverside Drive to public traffic and fast-tracking plans for a CityCat terminal. And Mr Rees said residents felt they were not consulted about increasing building heights.
“We are appalled at the suggestions of 15, 20 and 30-storey highrises being built here,” he said.
“We moved into this area believing the height limit would be seven storeys and we don’t want to see our area turned into a concrete jungle,” Mr Rees said.
He said a CityCat terminal and a reliable bus service on Montague Rd were important to give residents adequate public transport. Mr Rees said they supported redevelopment of the old riverside industrial areas as long as it was on a “human scale” and integrated with the established community of West End, “rather than creating a concrete barrier between West End and the river”."
See City South NewsThe company behind a new apartment complex in Brisbane's West End says it does not think the project will worsen local traffic flow. The old box cardboard factory near the Brisbane River will be replaced by 220 apartments. There will be two eight-storey towers built on the site.
Ross Higgins from Pradella Developments says it should attract more transport infrastructure to the area.
"West End's undergoing a major infrastructure redevelopment from a traffic point of view now," he said.
"And really what we're doing is replacing a lot of people that were working in the area anyway.
"I don't believe it'll have a negative effect on transport in fact I think that it'll bring more transport infrastructure to the area."
Source: ABC News
In fact, there are plans for more than two buildings on the site -- with two or three buildings planned for the other side of Duncan Street as well, as shown on the map on the project website.
See also Brisbane TimesMultiplex have started to sell the fourth building in the Portside development at Hamilton Shipping Terminal. This building is named Promenade. Here is a video.
Promenade is being marketed as waterfront, but the building is not waterfront. It is behind other buildings. (In addition, the firth building, Hamilton Waterfront Residences which is the same height, will be built in front of Promenade. HWR will have "absolute waterfront" apartments with an average price of $1.6M.)
Promenade has apartments from level 4 to level 15. There are a mix of 1, 2 and 3 bed apartments. There are two levels of quality -- the lower levels are not as good quality as the higher levels. For example, the lower levels are not fully airconditoned - there is a wall mounted unit in the living room only. The cupboards are laminate. On the lower levels, the quality of finishes are lower, and in my opinion by today's standards, quite poor.
There are 144 apartments, and according to documents dated 19 September 2008, 45 apartments have sold. Most of the apartments that sold are on levels 6 and 7 (which are the 3rd and 4th levels of apartments). Only 8 apartments have been sold on the top six levels. The most expensive is $1,650,000. The cheapest is a 1 bed with no car for $385,000.
Here are some sample prices (noting that the first level of apartments is level 4):
Level 5, Apartment P014, 2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car, 90 sqm internal, 24 sqm balcony, 114 sqm total, plaza views = $669,000
Level 8, Apartment P033, 2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car, 95 sqm internal, 29 sqm balcony, 124 sqm total, river views = $719,000
Level 12, Apartment P141 (illustrated above), 2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car, 92 sqm internal, 18 sqm balcony, 110 sqm total, river views = $960,000
Level 12, Apartment P142, 2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car, 93 sqm internal, 17 sqm balcony, 110 sqm total, Hamilton views = $790,000
Level 14, Apartment P068, 2 bed plus study, 2 bath, 1 car, 103 sqm internal, 26 sqm balcony, 129 sqm total, north view = $990,000
The rentals estimates given out at the display say that the rentals estimated for Promenades for two bedroom apartments is $520 to $600 per week, or up to $675 per week if there is a study. This is not a great return for the prices listed above.
Some other figures in the Multiplex brochure:
Capital growth for units in Hamilton in 07/08 was negative 5.9% (for Brisbane City it was 13.5%).
Medium sales price for units in Hamilton in August 07 was $645,000, in March 08 it had dropped to $438,000. In the corresponding period, Brisbane City medium sales price for units had risen by $30,000.
What concerns me about this building is that it is not absolute waterfront, more than half the apartments do not have river views, the quality of finishes on the lower floors are poor (thus attracting cheaper rents and pulling down building values), and the building will eventually be surrounded by other buildings on all sides. Those apartments with river views have obstruction and roof views of other buildings. The price per sqm is high, for example $8727 for a 2 bed on a higher floor. As far as I can tell, this building does not have a pool or gym.
The Courier Mail reports (14 September 2008):
"A NEW riverside neighbourhood, 6km from the Brisbane CBD, will house 13,000 residents, feature high-rise buildings, a boat harbour and golf course.
Premier Anna Bligh will today release master plans for the Northshore Hamilton development as part of her Toward Q2, Tomorrow's Queensland vision. Ms Bligh said it would offer "lifestyle options from the affordable to the luxurious". Work will begin at the 304ha site – between Brett's Wharf and the Gateway Bridge – next year.
"This is a vision of how this area can be revived for Queenslanders over the next 20 years and is an example of the sort of development we want to see under my Government's Toward Q2 ambitions," Ms Bligh told The Sunday Mail yesterday. This master plan is a vision of a strong, fair, green, healthy and smart development. It combines potential facilities for super-yachts, with affordable housing, healthy open spaces and green initiatives." ...
"Northshore Hamilton will play an important role in providing housing, in close proximity to the major growth centres, for the company director to the factory floor worker," Ms Bligh said. "Over 7000 new dwellings will accommodate 13,000 new residents."
The Premier said the riverfront would feature luxury homes with moorings for pleasure craft, with at least 15 per cent of other properties classified as "affordable housing".
Buildings would rise from three to 15 storeys, with two "landmark" apartment/office blocks of 20 to 23 levels.
The master plan for Northshore and Bowen Hills can be viewed on the Urban Land Development Authority website at www.ulda.qld.gov.au
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