Logan Granny Flats, your granny flat experts bring to you an excerpt of one of Australia’s top property industry analysts has to say about the SE Queensland property market.

2015 – Not sure where to buy your next investment property? South East Queensland is the place to be, according to a number of experts, including Terry Ryder. Here are his thoughts …

Terry Ryder
1.12.14

There’s a pretty good argument that the hottest property precinct in Australia right now is South East Queensland.

Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast: Together they comprise a vast metropolitan area - ongoing urban growth means these three big centres have merged into one big conurbation which starts at the NSW border and extends 250 kilometers north to Noosa.

All three have hot markets. The research conducted by Hotspotting for the latest edition of the Price Predictor Index revealed 254 suburbs across South East Queensland with rising sales activity.

To put that in perspective, the Sydney metropolitan area has 106 growth suburbs. If you add in the Central Coast, which has caught the growth wave from the capital city, there are 120 growth markets.

This shows that, while Sydney is the nation’s hottest big market in terms of price growth, it’s starting to fade (though not markedly, as yet), while South East Queensland is starting to rise.

So when you see headlines suggesting that the boom is fading and price growth is starting to dissipate, remember that it’s Sydney they’re talking about. There are markets elsewhere in Australia that are really just starting their run.

They include Adelaide and Hobart, as well as numerous regional cities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

But the headline event is the rise of South East Queensland. While there has been some price growth in 2014, to date it has been fairly moderate.

The big shift has been in sales volumes and that’s what I mean when I say there are 254 growth suburbs in the region – 254 suburbs throughout Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast with distinct patterns of rising sales activity.

The greatest price growth will come in 2015.

I remain hesitant about the Gold Coast. There’s no doubt that the oversupply that has dragged down this market for five years has now been absorbed – and that there is a significant real estate recovery under way.

The heartening thing is that most of the growth suburbs on the Gold Coast at the moment are what I would call genuine housing markets – inland suburbs where houses are being sold, rather than coastal locations where highrise apartments are flogged to investors and speculators.

Unfortunately, that will change. Now that the Gold Coast is back on a growth path, developers are flocking back, intent on creating the next oversupply. Driven more by ego and greed than common sense, developers are competing for the title of biggest project and tallest tower.

And, like their counterparts in Melbourne, it’s all designed for sale to Chinese investors. It won’t end well.

Beyond that cautionary note, the message about Brisbane and South East Queensland looks highly positive at the moment.

The opportunity for investors lies in understanding that the rise in sale volumes we have seen in 2014 is a forerunner to significant price growth.

South East Queensland has more momentum now than does Sydney, but it’s not yet reflected in price growth data.

That is yet to come.

Logan Granny Flats, your local Granny Flat Experts, bring to you another interesting snippet :

Jennifer Duke
Domain Review Editor
12.8.15

Some landlords are charging thousands of dollars a month for granny flats, as asking rents for Sydney's granny flats jump to their highest price on record.

The weekly asking rent for a granny flat increased 5.95 per cent over 2014/2015, according to Flatmates.com.au data. This was a higher rate of growth than houses (3.9 per cent) and apartments (1 per cent).

Those wanting to rent this affordable housing option should expect to pay an average of $292.46 per week – the highest in the country, followed by Perth at $251.25 which remained flat over the year.

Yet some granny flats are securing far more than the average.

A brand new three-bedroom granny flat at 63A Ryde Road, Pymble  is available for $650 per week, with Savills Cordeau Marshall Gordon senior property manager Helen Hovey.

"It has only been up for a week and has already had some inquiry," Hovey said. The main residence and the granny flat are up for rent separately.

Granny flats are also asking thousands of dollars a month in Frenchs Forest, Dee Why, Wheeler Heights and North Manly.

The tight rental market, low first home buyer numbers and steady levels of migration are behind the increase, said Domain Group senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson.

"The vacancy rate has tightened again and we are still seeing supply struggle to keep up with demand for rental accommodation," Wilson said.

The vacancy rate dropped 0.1 per cent over the month to July 2015, according to Domain Group data.

Tenants are showing strong demand for this type of cheaper rental, said Edwin Almeida, principal of agency 'Just Think Real Estate'.

"They do rent well and quickly," he said.

He warned that in some suburbs there is a "glut" of granny flats, such as in the western suburbs, which would limit the amount of rent that could be charged.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Planning and Environment confirmed there had been a 68 per cent increase in granny flat and dual occupancies approved in NSW, up to 4818 approved in 2013/2014.

General manager of flatmates.com.au Thomas Clement said granny flats do exist in the inner-city areas, however it's usually homes with larger land in the suburbs that offer these rentals.

"Places like the upper north shore, northern beaches and western suburbs are popular for granny flats, as home owners have more land to accommodate them," Clement said.

The priciest granny flat suburbs on average in Sydney are North Ryde ($371.25), Avalon Beach ($370), North Curl Curl ($365), Frenchs Forest ($364.73) and Kingsford ($360).

The cheapest options are West Ryde ($206.75), Rockdale ($205), Arncliffe ($205), South Hurstville ($202.85) and Liverpool ($192.50).

The lowest-price granny flat in Sydney currently available for rent is in Cambridge Park , asking $190 per week.

www.qt.com.au
Chris Owen
5 August 2015

IPSWICH business owner Sonia Woolley is a woman who is building success in one of the most male-dominated industries in Australia.

Ms Woolley is the co-director of Ipswich Granny Flats, an enterprise which gives home owners the opportunity to turn their backyards into goldmines.

She - and her business partner Julie Adams - develop a householder's empty lawn space with granny flats so that the owners can rent them out and pocket the cash.

Their business was created after a reform by the Ipswich City Council suddenly allowed home owners to use a granny flat as a rental for an unrelated party.

Prior to the reform, legislation required that only a dependant relative could live in a granny flat.

The business recently expanded to Logan, after the city's council also adopted similar changes to their planning scheme this year.

Ms Woolley, who is the principal and director of Vision Property Group, said granny flats had become an increasingly popular option for investors.

As a testament to her success, Ms Woolley has been recognised as one of the top women in Queensland's building industry.

She was recently named a state finalist in The Housing Industry Association's Recognition of Women in the Industry awards.

The awards were created to showcase women who inspire, motivate, achieve results and lead by example in the building industry.

"More and more women are playing a bigger and crucial role within the building industry these days," Ms Woolley said.

"Women are very driven by whatever careers they are passionate about.

"I have a lot of passion for the work I do and although I didn't win, I was honoured to be a finalist for this award".

HIA executive director Warwick Temby said HIA was keen to demonstrate how women were operating in leadership roles in what was still a very male dominated industry.

"The industry must do everything it can to encourage women into the industry at all levels to ensure that there is an adequate supply of skills to meet the future demand for housing in the state," he said.

Logan Granny Flats, your local Granny Flat Experts, bring to you another interesting snippet :

http://www.theurbandeveloper.com
Staff Writer
27 July 2015

Queensland is by far the state of choice for property investors looking to buy, according to new research by property investment advisers MRD Partners.

More than half of respondents to MRD’s Australian Property Investor Survey indicated the Sunshine State was where their next investment would be.

Queensland outstripped its rival states of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia in popularity by four to one, South Australia by 6 to 1, Tasmania by 32 to 1, and the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory by 48 to 1.

WA was the second choice behind Queensland, but it was a distant second, with only 13.61 per cent of respondents indicating the state was their preferred investment location.

Nick Lockhart, MRD Partners’ Managing Director, said it was no surprise Queensland was the focus for investors going forward.

He said there had been plenty of speculation over the past 18 months pointing to South East Queensland in particular as the place to invest, largely because it was long overdue for an upturn.

“Investors know all markets go through what we call a ‘property cycle’, where there is typically a boom, followed by a flat market and some price correction before it lifts again, and Brisbane is the only capital not to have experienced a substantial lift since the GFC,” Mr Lockhart said. “The Brisbane market has moved from recovery to growth but has not yet entered what we could call a ‘boom’ market, so there is plenty of opportunity for people to get in now and buy before that growth comes.”

Survey respondents indicated they believed the Queensland market was ‘on the comeback’, along with the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Tasmania.

New South Wales and Victoria were considered to be at the top of the cycle, while the property market in Western Australia and the Northern Territory were labelled as ‘in a slump’.

Mr Lockhart noted that the WA property market had recently stagnated – or fallen in some instances – due to the slowdown in mining, which was creating opportunities in the state for investors.

But he also noted the majority of investors who indicated a desire to buy in WA were those from the state, which was evidence of a preference to buy “in their own backyard”.

“Alongside Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria were also high on the shopping list for investors, which was to be expected,” he added. “Even though these states have experienced significant growth recently, they will always be popular markets as they have a history of strong growth.”

MRD’s survey found the majority of property investors were positive about the market, with more than 51 per cent of respondents indicating they would buy over the coming year and 50 per cent indicating they believed negative gearing would remain despite recent political debate about its possible removal.

Investors from the Australian Capital Territory expressed the highest sentiment, with 89 per cent wanting to buy in the next year, followed by those from NSW at 66 per cent.

Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania were the only states where the majority of investors indicated they did not want to buy over the next 12 months.

Investors surveyed preferred to buy a house and land (62.8 per cent) as opposed to townhouses (15.46 per cent) and units/apartments (14.01 per cent), and were almost equally split on whether they preferred to buy in the inner city (47.34%) or in areas further from CBDs (45.41%).

“People still believe the value of a property investment is in the land,” Mr Lockhart said. “As medium density has given way to higher density – that is, as bigger apartment blocks and townhouse complexes are being built – there has been a shift back to single-dwelling homes. In the past two decades master-planned housing estates have sprung up making housing further from our CBDs more appealing. With them comes a mixture of retail and commercial facilities, as well as residential housing, usually with lakes, parks, community facilities, schools, hospitals and bikeways.”