mrd

THE boom suburbs of yesteryear are built out.The city’s growing pains have been revealed in two new growth reports that highlight Federal Government plans to squeeze one million people into the Gold Coast.

After years of interstate migration, suburbs including Parkwood, Arundel, Molendinar, Mermaid Waters and Clear Island Waters have now grown beyond their means.According to Gold Coast City Council documents, the pressure on infrastructure on available land space will drive people west into emerging suburbs

.Over the next 21 years, Molendinar will grow by a minuscule 98 new dwellings, with only 10ha available for new homes.The number of residents in Parkwood and Arundel will rise marginally from 19,108 to 20,541

.In comparison, Helensvale, Pimpama, Coomera and Varsity Lakes will take over as the region's new growth suburbs.Almost 700ha will be developed in the Pimpama-Coomera residential precinct, increasing the present number of dwellings from 2736 to 27,781 by 2031.Across the city, the number of dwellings will jump from 212,174 to almost 360,000.

Despite local residents claiming traffic and parking are already at peak capacity, both Surfers Paradise and Southport have been positioned by the council and state and federal governments to house thousands more residents.

The number of single and multi-dwellings in Surfers Paradise will increase to 35,594 to house a projected population of 38,705. The population of Southport will double to 51,115 residents, with high-rise developments expected to be built along the rapid transit route.

To accommodate the population boost, more than 12,000 new homes and units will need to be built on the Gold Coast by 2031.

In November, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd revealed his audacious plans to increase the population of the Gold Coast region to 1.2 million by 2050, up from the present population of 630,000

Mr Rudd has backed a ‘big Australia’ approach.

Through the southeast Queensland regional plan, the State Government has also backed dramatic population growth in suburbs that are positioned on the heavy rail line, including Varsity Lakes and Coomera.

At a local level, Mayor Ron Clarke has rejected calls to dramatically increase the population of the Gold Coast. Cr Clarke has said the lifestyle of Gold Coast residents should be preserved at all costs. City finance boss Cr Eddy Sarroff has pledged to include a raft of major ‘social infrastructure’ projects, including public pools, libraries and community centres, to service projected population growth across the city

via Gold Coast City heads for outer spaces Local Gold Coast News | goldcoast.com.au | Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

THE Gold Coast residential market is critically undersupplied and needs about 35 new dwellings built per working day to cater for the population boom, according to an independent analyst.

Speaking recently at Hope Island, Brisbane-based Michael Matusik said drastic measures need to be taken by local authorities to stimulate development to house the 16,700 new people a year calling the city home.

“The Gold Coast is currently undersupplied by 43 per cent when the number of dwelling starts for 2008/09 is matched with the projected underlying demand,” he said.

“Translated, this means 8500 new dwellings need to be built each year, or about 35 per working day, to cater for the city’s rapidly expanding population.

“As it stands now, on average only 550 new dwellings have been approved per month on the Gold Coast since July 2006 — a shortfall of almost 2000 (a year) when compared to what needs to be built.”

Mr Matusik said despite these ‘astonishing’ figures there was a flipside for investors. More…

Another 754,000 homes will be needed in Queensland’s southeast corner, with the population expected to grow from 2.8 to 4.4 million by the early 2030s, a new report says. Queensland’s Planning Minister Stirling Hinchliffe released the updated South East Queensland Regional Plan in Brisbane on Tuesday.

The plan will govern how Australia’s fastest-growing region is managed from now to 2031. Mr Hinchliffe said the regional plan would also protect 85 per cent of southeast Queensland, including koala habitat, from urban development. He said the regional plan would encourage development away from the coast and towards a corridor west of Brisbane.

Brisbane and the Gold Coast are expected to take about a fifth of the new homes each, Ipswich 16 per cent, the Sunshine Coast 13 per cent, Moreton Bay 11 per cent and Logan nine per cent. “But we can’t have that across the whole of the region without breaking out and creating that sprawl that we don’t want to have, without damaging the 85 per cent of the southeast that’s being protected,” Mr Hinchliffe told reporters.

Australian Koala Foundation chief executive Deborah Tabart said koala habitat was still in great danger. “The 85 per cent sounds fabulous but it does not take in 85 per cent of the region’s high koala populations,” Ms Tabart said. “If they were saying 85 per cent of the koala coast then it’s good news.”

Property groups are calling for compensation, saying many owners stand to lose planned developments or part of their property. Urban Development Institute of Australia national executive director Brian Stewart said at least six developments in the Redland Bay area would be affected. “No one objects to the rights of the people of the Redlands to say we really want to preserve our koala populations,” Mr Stewart said. “If you have a piece of land and then all of a sudden you cannot develop a third or a half of it, immediately your profit margin goes down, the scale of the development goes down and you may not have a viable development on your hands which means job losses.”

The plan has identified areas within the urban footprint for high density living such as suburbs around the Northern Busway, Brisbane’s CBD, Milton, Albion, Woolloongabba, Bowen Hills, South Brisbane and West End. Further out, suburbs such as Chermside, Indooroopilly, Carindale and Upper Mt Gravatt will also become higher density. Mr Hinchliffe said the plan set an urban dwelling target of 15 homes per hectare but would protect the “great backyard” as a housing option. “That is a style of housing and a style of residential accommodation that people in southeast Queensland know very well,” he said.

The report also identifies job opportunities particularly in the growing science, medical and technology industries at Buranda, Coopers Plains, Eight Mile Plains, Southport and Toowoomba. Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek said it was vital that infrastructure was built to keep pace with population growth and housing was kept affordable. “That hasn’t happened so far,” Mr Langbroek said.

The region covers an area of 22,890 square kilometres, stretching 240km from Noosa in the north to the Queensland-NSW border in the south, and 160km west to Toowoomba.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/local/5756771/govt-reveals-plan-for-booming-se-qld/

The Gold Coast Sun newspaper ran an article quoting property analyst and author of the Midwood report, Bill Morris, as saying he expects an average increase of 30% on Gold Coast housing by the end of next year. He said that historical data confirms the cyclical nature of the property market and its ability to bounce back.

I quote “Over the past 40 years we (on the Gold Coast) have had a regular seven year cycle regardless of interest rates and the state of the economy.” He commented that in the last boom of 2003 some prices increased by 100% in one year and he expects a recovery early next year with prices increasing by up to 30% on current values.

I often have dinner with Bill Morris at a local golf club ( a fun trivia night) and I was interested to hear that two of the areas he is forecasting huge growth in are ones where I own property. The main negative thought Bill passed on was regarding holiday let (often high rise) apartments as “they are discretionary purchases” often bought as holiday homes and are off loaded quickly when the economy turns sour.

Martin Bell

Brisbane apartment sizes will shrink in coming years as the growing population of single households, couples without children and downsizing baby boomers turn away from “McMansion” homes, experts predict.

Property analyst Michael Matusik believes there is a large segment of the real-estate market who would prefer to live in a compact unit of 50 square metres or less.

>>> ‘McMansions’ on the outer – Property News @ Domain.com.au.

January 17th, 2009

RESIDENTIAL property values on the Gold Coast are set to benefit from a booming population and strong demand for housing, according to research from PRDnationwide.

The research, compiled by Lynda Campbell of PRDnationwide’s Gold Coast office, shows the city needs 129 new dwellings a week to cope with the present population growth of 3.6 per cent — 2.1 per cent higher than Australia’s national growth rate.

Ms Campbell said while the actual population figure was down from previous years, this was a direct result of recent local government boundary reforms rather than a declining population.

“Population figures have dropped below 500,000, but when you consider that Beenleigh and its surrounds no longer form part of the Gold Coast, the population growth is still significantly high,” she said.

The report states that building approvals for houses and apartments on the Gold Coast have dropped dramatically in the 12 months to June, 2008.

“Building approvals aren’t keeping up with the residential demand resulting from the Gold Coast’s burgeoning population,”said Ms Campbell. “The last year has seen approval of 735 fewer houses and apartments across the region.

“Combined with current record low interest rates, this drop in supply and continual increase in demand should have a positive impact on property.”

>>> Gold Coast needs 129 new homes a week: report – Realestate News – Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.

To make sense of the property market we must separate opinion from fact. Opinions will always be heard… just in greater numbers now perhaps. If you are prepared to “drill deeper” and dissect the evidence available; the facts will speak for themselves. There’s no reason for allowing the conflicting voices of opinion to keep you confused!

In the current round of Web Seminars we are offering, I highlight four key factors that are a MUST… if you expect to draw any credible conclusions.

1.    Record Population Growth
2.    Investors Have Fled The Market
3.    Home Ownership Unattractive
4.    New Construction Has Stalled Badly

More…

The Gold Coast Bulletin ran an article yesterday (Thursday) saying that one in four baby boomers will have to work into their 70′s because of the “hit” they have taken to their super recently. “Traditional retirement is not an option – they just cannot afford to stop working”.

More…

An article in The Australian commented today that a third of the nation’s population lives in rural and regional centres, and that they felt the economic strength of the sector has been overlooked in recent times.
Colliers International national research director Rory McLeod was quoted as saying. “many regional property markets were showing strong growth — in commercial and residential property — and offered some good investment opportunities.” They also stated that Queensland residential property prices were still growing strongly and there was also an upward trend in non-residential construction and investment in regional areas.

Mr Mcleod said “The boom delivered first-round benefits in economic, employment and population growth, as well as second-round benefits as a result of the Government investing in infrastructure such as hospitals, airports, dams and ports, which benefit local communities”.

“Many of our regional centres are quite robust”, Mr McLeod told a recent series of Colliers seminars, titled Beyond the CBDs. “Most have a fairly diverse economic base and represent safe, solid, secure and attractive investment opportunities.”

Reportedly Townsville was showing the fastest growth in taxpayers, and Cairns had the highest growth in individual income with both cities showing the highest population growth in the areas surveyed. Mr McLeod was quoted as saying that house price growth had been flat in NSW since 2004, but prices in Queensland had continued to grow, particularly in the far north centres of Cairns and Townsville. “In Townsville, major projects are occurring in the defence, education, marine and healthcare markets.”

Economic Viability

• A fundamentally broad based economy benefiting from regional industries including sugar production, mining, cattle grazing and fishing; each of which form large elements of the North Queensland regional economic base with no end in sight in particular to the boom in mining services
• Gross Regional Product (nth region) 06/07 up 7.8% to $11.8 billion
• Defence bases expanding by 2012 – 1500 soldiers and support staff moving from Holsworthy
• Business challenge: Skills shortages & increased supply costs

More…