mrd

Vacant land grab feared as stocks begin to dry up. IT’S crunch time for developers.

Vacant land sales are at their highest level since 2003, the end of the last boom, but low stock levels could lead to a major squeeze on the property market as it saddles up for a new wave of growth in 2008.
“The Gold Coast will need to build a lot more houses over the next few years to meet the increasing demand.”Mr Morris said that while 15,000 southerners continued to flood the Gold Coast each year, many of them were not buying into the property market.They were choosing to rent in the face of rising interest rates and purchase costs, creating a false sense of market demand.

Mr Morris said the sheer volume of migration put underlying demand at 6250 homes a year, well above actual house and land sales of just 3830 for 2006.

He said some of the country’s biggest players already had their hands on significant tracts of land and he had identified Coomera, east of the M1, as the developers’ cauldron over the next 10 years.

Source: GC Weekend Bulletin