Showing posts with label targina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label targina. Show all posts

Sunday, June 18, 2017

REIQ Quarterly Report

The real estate agent's industry group, REIQ, released a report this week into the Queensland residential property market.  From the REIQ press release, which is always somewhat optimistic:

"THE house market has rebounded from a period of low listings with a surge of stock, in some markets as much as 100 per cent more in the March quarter, according to the REIQ’s March Quarter Queensland Market Monitor.

Looking at southeast areas where the market is performing well, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast were the two strongest performing markets in Queensland again this quarter, outperforming Brisbane (as they did last quarter).

The Sunshine Coast continues to grow and, along with the Gold Coast, these centres formed the top two most popular migration destinations for people moving within Australia in 2016.   More than 12,000 people moved to these two coastal destinations (excluding overseas immigration) last year, according to ABS data.

Noosa was the top annual median house performer with an annual growth of 9.2 per cent compared with March 2016. This has positioned Noosa as the second-most expensive house market with an annual median sale price of $615,000.

The unit market over the past 12 months has begun to show signs of easing, with the annual median unit price falling 1.9 per cent to $445,000.  However, that slight easing doesn’t represent the whole story for Brisbane’s unit and townhouse market.

There are suburbs that have done well this quarter, including Albion (up 5 per cent since December), Bulimba (up 26.8 per cent this quarter), Indooroopilly (up 18.5 per cent), New Farm (up 7.5 per cent), Rochedale (21.1 per cent), Taringa (4.8 per cent) and Toowoong (up 3.2 per cent since December).  [Editor note:  this is likely because of new apartments being sold for the first time, not price increases in existing apartments.]
  
Brisbane LGA suburbs where units have done well over 12 months and five years include:
  • ·       Annerley
  • ·       Balmoral
  • ·       Bridgeman Downs
  • ·       Coopers Plains
  • ·       Coorparoo
  • ·       Darra
  • ·       Greenslopes
  • ·       Highgate Hill
  • ·       Manly
  • ·       Manly West
  • ·       Mount Gravatt
  • ·       Norman Park
  • ·       Red Hill
  • ·       Richlands
  • ·       Rochedale
  • ·       Toowong
  • ·       Wakerley
  • ·       Wynnum

Units are becoming more popular with Queenslanders. CoreLogic has reported that 17 per cent of Queenslanders live in an apartment, just behind New South Wales’ 22 per cent and ahead of Victoria’s 15 per cent.

“The REIQ is confident the long-term future of apartments is secure and particularly in the inner-city where such exciting projects as Queen’s Wharf and the Howard Smith Wharves are adding to the night-time economy of inner Brisbane.  Added to South Bank, Milton’s Caxton Street and the Barracks, the West End, and Eat Street Markets, this is a diverse and vibrant inner-city and the demand for inner-city apartments will continue to grow over time,” Ms Mercorella from REIQ said.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Western Suburbs Brisbane Apartments

A real estate agent has issued a interesting report regarding sales of houses and apartments in the Western suburbs of Brisbane (Indooroopilly, Taringa, Toowong, St Lucia.)  The report is available here.

According to this report, the 2016 market was worse than in 2013, 2014 and 2015, based on number of sales and also on total sales prices.

For example, in Indooroopilly, in 2015 a total of $130M in apartments were sold.  In 2016, this dropped to $60M.  In Toowong, $117M in 2015, dropped to $82M in 2016.

It seems that 2016 was a good time to buy but not a good time to sell?

The report lists the top 10 apartment sales in each suburb.  With a number of new buildings reaching completion in 2017, I suspect that the top sales in 2017 will be concentrated in a few of these new buildings.  For example, Aspect Property Group's Centra in Toowong has a number of apartments above $900,000 that settled in January 2017.  All of these sales will be higher than the top Toowong apartment sale for 2016, which was $862,500.

When looking a new buildings, keep in mind this report --  you may be paying top dollar!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Brisbane Rents

Here is the median Brisbane rent for 2 bedroom apartments, as sourced from the RTA based upon information provided to the RTA when rental bonds are lodged or updated.  This does not distinguish between furnished and unfurnished apartments, and does not include lease renewals where the bond amount does not change.  This is for the September 2012 quarter.

Post Code 4000 (Brisbane City): $585 per week
Post Code 4005 (New Farm): $530 per week
Post Code 4007 (Hamilton): $420 per week
Post Code 4101 (South Bank/ South Brisbane): $510 per week
Post Code 4066 (Toowong): $395 per week
Post Code 4067 (St Lucia): $420 per week
Post Code 4068 (Indooroopilly/Taringa): $385 per week

There is a lot of good rental information on the RTA website at: Median Rents Quick Finder

Do not use WhatRentMyHome.  This "service" is operated by a real estate agency, and the information it provides is inaccurate and out-of-date, and is misleading.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Finding A Great Apartment to Rent in Brisbane



Introduction


Finding a good apartment or home unit to rent in Brisbane is not easy, particularly in January and February when the demand for apartment rentals is high and many tenants are looking.


In the best buildings, the existing tenants do not often leave, and when they do move out, the apartment is often snapped up quickly. For the better buildings, a large percentage of the apartments are occupied by the owner, and so are not rented out.   Also, onsite managers often control the rental rolls, and don't often advertise on the usual property websites (as they don't need to do so).  Some have their own website.  Also, onsite managers may have a relationship with executive relocation services, and the better apartments may be provided to corporate tenants.  For the mid-quality buildings, many apartments are furnished and rented on a short term basis, sometimes even overnight.  Thus, there may be few apartments available for rent. 

At one time, a good specialist website for apartments was http://www.seqrents.com.au However, it seems that some buildings are not using this site anymore, or are not bothering to update their listing on this site. So, although useful, it is less useful.


A newer website that has a number of rental listings is CityApartmentSales, and is used by a number of the onsite managers to list apartments for rent.  The largest number of listings are located on RealEstate.com.au, but a number of onsite managers do not use this website.  Also, try Central Apartments for rentals in Pradella buildings.

You have to find out how each manager advertises his/her vacancy.

Generally, you want to avoid any buildings managed by Oaks, as they focus on short term hotel style rentals.

This website has a list of most city apartment buildings, with useful information and links about them. Also, try this customised search engine.

Downtown Brisbane:

If you want to live downtown, then I recommend the Admiralty Precinct. This comprises three first-tier buildings (Admiralty One, Admiralty Two and Admiralty Quays), plus River Place (good location, not as good quality) and Skyline (second tier).  Recently partially opened just behind these buildings is Meriton's Soleil (budget quality).

Admiralty One is good value, and has some of the largest two bedroom apartments in Brisbane, but is a smaller building.  It is direct river front - http://www.admiraltyone.com.au/

Admiralty Two also has good sized apartments, and the building has great facilities. http://www.admiraltytwo.com.au/

Admiralty Quays is newer, and has a great pool, but the apartments are smaller than the two Admiralty buildings listed above, and it is more expensive. http://www.admiraltyquays.com/

Nearby on the river in the city is River Place, that is not as good quality, but is likely to have availability as this is a large complex. Careful of Storey Bridge noise. Great views.  Great pool.

Soleil has only just opened.  It is currently the tallest building in Brisbane.  A large building with over 400 apartments, but less than half have been sold.  In late December, the Soleil website said that there were currently no apartments available for lease.
On Alice Street in the city, if you can get an apartment in Quay West, that is fantastic, as it has park and river views.  About half the apartments in this building are hotel managed, so it is easy to get short term accommodation in Quay West, but difficult to find an apartment for a long term lease.  All apartments are privately owned. You want to get above level 7.

For an inner city downtown building, Metro 21 is one of the better quality buildings. It has only 4 apartments per floor -- and tries to be more upmarket so is better than most buildings that aim at students -- it seems to have better availability, and some of the two bedroom apartments have three bathrooms. The baloneys are large:
http://www.realestate.com.au/realestate/agent/metro+21+brisbane/mlibri
and http://www.metro21apartments.com.au/

M on Mary has recently been taken over by new management, so it will be interesting to see what happens in this building.  It was not high on my list previously, but that may change with the new management.

Parklands at Roma Street also has some good apartments.

SouthBank


I recommend Arbour on Grey at SouthBank: http://arbour.com.au/cms/welcome.html

Also, Saville (Mantra) at SouthBank is one of the nicest buildings if you get a river facing apartment.  The apartments are level 8 and above.  Below level 8 is a hotel.  The best thing to do here is call to find out availability.  Telephone 07 3305 2559


West End


There is likely to be some availability in some of the riverside West End apartments.  These include Waters Edge, Flow, Koko and Left Bank.


Some of the better apartments not on the river road include SL8 and Tempo.


In my view, all of the above West End apartments are too isolated.

Apartments in Suburbs

The suburbs that I recommend, due to location, transport and large number of better quality apartments, are Toowong, St Lucia, Taringa, Indooroopilly and possibly Milton and Hamilton.  I don't recommend Chermside.

In Indooroopilly, there has been very little recent construction.  Two of the newer, quality buildings Riva and Ciana.

Riva has apartments with great river views. It is a quiet building, with a pool, and is close to the train station and Indooroopilly Shopping Centre.  It has good onsite managers, but apartments rarely become available here.

Ciana is a larger new complex, in a central location, with many large apartments. There is a pool and gym, plus a bowls club! 

The newest complex in the Toowong / Taringa area is Fresh.  This complex has two pools, a gym and great gardens, and a large number of apartments are owned by super funds and thus are rentals.  Try here.

Next door to Fresh is Encore, which is a relatively nice complex, with good pricing (but not as nice as Fresh, and some of the apartments are small).  This complex flooded in January 2010.  

St Lucia is harder to find quality -- there are few onsite managers. So you have to try local real estate agents.

If you want an apartment complex that feels more suburban, then Parklands at Sherwood is a great choice. Many apartments have park/rural views, and there is a great pool and bbq area.

Nearby is Tennyson Reach, where you can get a large new apartment on the river. This is a new complex, but (apart from river views) not a great location.  It was badly flooded.  You can rent a high quality apartment at a reasonable price here, if you don't mind the location.