Source:  Australian Property Journal NEARLY 500 flood-impacted Queensland families have accepted an offer to have their home bought back under the state government’s Resilient Homes Fund (RHF). The program, a jointly-funded initiative delivered through Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA), was established in May last year following the catastrophic 2021-22 rainfall and flooding events. To date, 304 sale contracts under the voluntary home buy-back prog...

Source: Courier Mail Five key factors will determine whether the property market “springs forward or falls back” over the back end of 2023 and into next year. 1. Interest rates What the RBA does in September with rates is critical. If they raise them, sentiment will drop and so may prices. 2. Supply and demand An over supply of listings will decrease prices. The best buying opportunities will occur towards the end of the year, when restless vendors will accept offers just to ...

Source: PEXA Mortgage holders adjusting to ‘new normal’ of higher interest rates, while loan refinancing reaches record highs The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Board agreed to hold the cash rate steady at 4.10% for a third consecutive month today, increasing hopes that this may be the peak in the current rate-rising cycle, while new data from PEXA shows loan refinances hit record highs this month – but still no sign of a ‘mortgage cliff’. PEXA Chief ...

Source: Domain Renters are facing a “diabolical situation” as unit rents rise more than seven times as fast as wages, and experts warn there is little prospect of relief on the way. Asking rents across the capital cities rose 26.1 per cent for units over the year to June, Domain data shows, soaring above the 3.6 per cent rise in the ABS wage price index over the 12-month period. Median asking rents for houses in the capitals rose by 11.5 per cent over the year, more than three ...

Source:  Australian Property Journal Developers Belmonde Property Group and Sun Luxe Group have lodged a development application for their four-tower mixed-use project in the 2032 Olympic Games precinct. The $1.5 billion proposed Gabba Heart Precinct, located at 79 Logan Rood in Woolloongabba on a 9,361sqm site, was designed by Architects Cottee Parker and will comprise four towers ranging from 36 to 41 storeys. Three of the towers will include more than 1,387 built-to-rent apartments...

Source: Corelogic House and Unit Markets Over the 12 Months to July 2023 Houses Best Performers Highest change in sales vols:  -11.3% Townsville (Qld) Shortest days on market:  26 days Toowoomba (Qld) Worst Performers Lowest yearly growth:  -20.4% Richmond-Tweed (NSW) The best performing state was undeniably Queensland, recording four out of these seven positive house value growth regions. These included Central Queensland (2.7%), the neighbouring region of Mackay&ndash...

Source:  Rich Harvey The volume of fixed rate mortgages expiring is due to peak between June and October of 2023. Many households with highly leveraged mortgages will be facing a critical financial juncture as they come off cheap fixed rates of around 2% and are hit with a new mortgage rate of circa 6%. The key question is… what proportion of households will be able to cope with these higher rates ….and for how long?   With cost of living pressures rising couple...

Source: Realestate.com.au REGIONAL Queensland continues to attract the lion’s share of Australia’s internal movers despite a lack of housing slowing down the great migration from capital cities, a new report has revealed. The latest Regional Movers Index by the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) and the Commonwealth Bank revealed that the Sunshine Coast (17%) and Gold Coast (9%) recorded the biggest share of net internal migration during the 12 months to June, but both recorded ...

Source:  CoreLogic After more than two years of unabated increases in the price to build a new home or renovate, the pressure on construction costs has come off the boil, despite lingering volatility among individual material types. CoreLogic’s Cordell Construction Cost Index (CCCI), which tracks the cost to build a typical new home, returned a quarterly growth rate of 0.7% for the June quarter, the lowest rate since September 2020 and well below the 1.2% decade average. Th...

John Leeson was invited to speak at the IRWA (International Right of Way) Association conference in Denver, Colorado in June 2023.  It was an honour to participate in the international presentation on water with representatives from throughout the world at the IRWA Conference. The conference hosted over 1,200 international attendees.  John was asked to participate in a Plenary Session: "The Ups and Downs of Water: Perspectives from Around the World", where John discussed...