Oversupply of Brisbane Units

There have been a number of articles this year regarding an oversupply of apartments in Brisbane, especially new high-rise in areas close to the city.  A large number of apartment buildings have completed recently, but there are many more on the way.  Most of the new apartments are being sold to foreign investors, and will be rented.

At present, a higher than usual number of apartments are available for rent in Brisbane.  Agents are reporting that it is taking a long time to rent apartments, and that rents are falling.  For example, a very nice riverfront apartment was without a tenant for 4 weeks, and finally rented for $50 a week below the asking rent.  Some owners are offering 4 weeks free rent.  For third-tier apartments, the rents have dropped dramatically.  The situation is not likely to improve any time soon.

When the foreign investors come to sell, they will not be able to sell to other foreigners.  So the pool of potential buyers will be much smaller.  This will cause significant price decreases for resales of apartments.  Currently, many apartments that are not being sold by developers (i.e., not new apartments that have FIRB approval) are taking a long time to sell in Brisbane.

Some articles of note:
Bubble Deflating
Warning on Brisbane apartment boom
Not pretty
High-rise Oversupply?
Prices Down Due to Oversupply
Areas to Avoid
Yield Compression
Mixed Outlook
Prices Plunge

Rental Pain

The Courier Mail has an article today about potential pain for rental property owners.  "A flood of new apartments being built in Brisbane spells bad news for property investors as rents are likely to soften in the competitive market.  New data from Urbis shows nearly 9000 new apartments will settle in Brisbane between now and 2017."  Confusingly, the article states that not all planned apartments will be built (so how could Urbis predict settlement of such apartments?).  Urbis goes on to say "So we are being cautious about predicting too much supply."

According to the article, Brisbane's inner north is by far the busiest precinct, with 1129 apartments predicted to settle in 2014 and a further 926 apartments next year.  It is claimed that 41% of apartments sold int he inner north in the June quarter were one bedroom apartments.

In my view, one must be careful to generalise here.  There may be many new apartments in certain areas, such as Bowen Hills, but few new apartments in other areas, such as downtown Brisbane or St Lucia.  There may be too many small apartments, and not enough 3 bedroom apartments.  So the oversupply may impact some and not others.

I would be careful buying in the Brisbane Showgrounds redevelopment area.  Although reasonably close to the city and the RBH hospital, there is not much within walking distance.  And there is a huge supply pipeline.  This weekend, Lendlease will release The Yards, the next stage of this redevelopment.  The development does not include any large parks, schools, kindergartens, supermarkets or the like.

Housing Price Supply and Demand

From the AFR on 30 July 2014, p. 28

"Recent house price appreciation has been driven by more than simply a strongly growing population.  Low interest rates have encouraged domestic investors to allocate assets into housing.  Foreign investors have also been buying.  A reduced rental return on housing would eventually discourage domestic investors but probably comes with a lag.

The apparent equalisation between an undersupply of housing versus strong demand for dwellings in major metropolitan areas comes as the official cash rate remains at a record low of 2.5%, and as the major banks lower their fixed rate home loans in an attempt to entire more people to borrow more."

This article applies more to the Sydney and Melbourne markets than Brisbane.  It is important to look at individual markets, and not take southern trends and blindly apply them to Brisbane.

The Long Decline in Australian House Values?

Morning Money, an investment website, has recently published an article:  The Long Drawn Out Retreat in Australian Housing Prices.  It predicts, due to an ageing population, that Australia will not need more housing in the future, and that house prices will decline as baby boomers sell up or die.

Whether the prediction is correct or not, I don't know.  However, I believe that apartments are more suited to an ageing population than stand-alone houses.  That is one reason I prefer apartments to houses.

Brisbane Apartments Prices to Fall

"The Brisbane inner-city apartment market is heading into a downswing due to the large numbers of off-the-plan projects currently being marketed in the Brisbane CBD and surrounding suburbs, according to property investment adviser Michael Yardney.

Yardney, the director of Metropole Property Investment Strategists, places the Brisbane unit market at two o'clock on the property clock – 12 o’clock indicates the property market has peaked while 3pm indicates the market is in a downswing.

Yardney expects there to be an oversupply of inner-CBD and near-CBD apartments in Brisbane for the next few years, causing prices to fall slightly.

Most recent data put out by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland has unit and townhouse prices in Brisbane up 3.8% over the June quarter to a median of $402,500 – but down 1.5% year-on-year.

Yardney says many of the Brisbane projects being currently marketed will remain unsold and this oversupply of properties will put downward pressure on prices and rentals.

“Many of the apartments that have been sold off the plan are coming on stream in the next few years and have been purchased by investors.  Some will have difficulty getting finance and settling their purchase. Others will be disappointed to see the end value of their properties is less than their purchase price,” he says.

Yardney assesses the Brisbane detached house market to be between four o’clock and five o’clock – still in a downturn but on the way to bottoming out.

“House prices have dropped for the last two years in Brisbane.  Brisbane buyers are lacking confidence to re-enter the market and are sitting on the sidelines waiting for signs that the market has bottomed before they make a purchase. Many were waiting for the resources boom to reignite their property market, but recent negative media has again dampened confidence,” says Yardney.

According to Yardney there are signs that the inner and middle-ring Brisbane home market is picking up, with more buyers returning and many properties now selling under a multi-offer scenario.

“Brisbane is entering the stabilisation phase of its property cycle, but prices are unlikely to start rising until 2013.”

Full Story on Property Observer

Housing Shortfall in Queensland?

"Australia's housing shortfall is expected to blow out to more than 640,000 in 20 years, prompting industry calls for tax cuts and other measures to stop prices going through the roof.

The gap between demand and supply increased by 28,200 to 186,800 housing units this year, a National Housing Supply Council (NHSC) report reveals.

The annual report on the state of supply shows NSW and Queensland had the largest shortfalls of 73,700 and 61,900, respectively."

See Business Spectator

Wall Street Journal Report on Australia Housing

"Locally, buyers have already started to wane. In the last year, there were 90,210 first-home buyers across Australia, 35% lower than the previous year and a seven-year low, according to BankWest, a Western Australia-based lender and unit of Commonwealth Bank.

Mr. Donnelly, whose firm has sold residential property in Australia worth more than A$1.2 billion to mostly overseas investors, says the market in Sydney and Brisbane could sidestep some of the weakness, largely because both fell behind in the recent development push.

Brisbane has also been weak, with prices off more than 6% this year, but much of the drop stems from the devastation to the capital of Queensland state earlier in the year from a series of floods."

Extract from WSJ report on decline in Australian property market

Oversupply of Apartments in Brisbane, especially Hamilton and Albion

THE number of apartments planned for Brisbane's inner north is the biggest threat to the success of the city's apartment market.

The June quarter report by real estate agent Place Advisory on inner Brisbane's apartment market says new developments planned for this precinct, which includes suburbs such as Bowen Hills through to Hamilton, threaten to create an oversupply in coming months.

Large multi-density communities are being approved almost on a weekly basis, while new mixed-use communities are poised to enter pre-release marketing campaigns before Christmas.

Place Advisory says that if many of these projects are not an overwhelming success, it will add to an already pessimistic local dynamic, ultimately driving away buyers from off-the-plan sales. The success or failure of only a few will affect the wider Brisbane property market in the longer term, it says.

Almost 70 per cent of the unconditional sales during the quarter were priced under $550,000. Only 6 per cent were above $750,000. Total sales were about $136 million, in line with the average total quarterly sales in the past five years.

There were 2144 new residential apartments for sale, or about 27 months' of stock, in inner Brisbane at the end of the financial year.

Of these, 50 per cent were two-bedroom, 33 per cent are one-bedroom apartments, and only 12 per cent three-bedroom configurations.

Place says most of the unconditional sales in the quarter were to interstate or international buyers.

Source: The Australian

56% over-valued!

"Australian house prices remain the most overvalued in the world, according to the latest quarterly ranking of global house prices by The Economist magazine.

Based on a historical gauge of home prices to rents between 1975-2010, the magazine estimates that Australian residences are 56 per cent over-valued, exceeding the 54 per cent over-priced rate in Hong Kong and 48 per cent in France.

"There may be good reasons for Australian prices to have risen so far, but people made similar, and ultimately incorrect, arguments for the run-up in prices in the West,"The Economist said in a statement accompanying the survey's release."

See SMH

Warning from NZ

"Sunshine Coast Remax real estate agent Michael Knights said the local housing market had dropped between 10% and 20% in the last 12 months, and the apartment market had been the hardest hit.

``A lot of the apartments that have been bought off the plans say 18 months to two years ago are selling for $100,000 to $200,000 less than people paid for them because there's just an oversupply."

See www.stuff.co.nz/4861361a20975.html