houses vs townhouses/units
The exact story I have been telling people is that the little gremlins saving for their first home 3 years ago were targetting the $80k homes which are now $180k. Opps too late there so the pressure is on with more people moving in the vacancy rate is next to zero and rents are starting to rise because of it.
The recent sales(6) that have passed through my books are 2 x $115k 1 x $110k 1 x $107.5k and 2 x $113.5k (one seller 2 buyers). These as always are the entry level properties and there were 4 in woodridge and 2 in Cairns in that mix.
So the $100k now is more like $120k average and the last $15-20k has been in the last few months. So me buying one in December for $99k and one in Feb for $100k, both through private sales, have on paper netted me $30-40k now.
The second reason the townhouses are doing well is that with the threshhold for land tax at $260k in Qld you find those with several houses as IP's may have a small balance available before hitting that number. This encourages these people to buy in the townhouse market to get a limited ($21k on average ) land compoment to keep them below the threshhold and not pay land tax.
First home buyers, 1200 new bodies a week moving into the SEQ area and new houses out south of Ippy not keeping up with demand, all indicates to me that things will continue to nudge closer to the house prices which have stalled for now.
A 5 acre site in Woodridge has been approved for 85 luxury 3 bedder townhouses to be constructed by a local builder. They will be marketted to interstate buyers for $230k each when completed in 18 months. So apples to apples with Sydney or Melbourne townhouses of a similar calibre would encourage the resales of a lot of the now $120k townhouses up to about the $170k mark in 2 years.
Sea change, I may sound like a ramp but the intention was to inform people that were "thinking about it" and not buying now to have a look for themselves.
Most of my loans are lodocs as I couldnt be stuffed to go to a bank directly for a loan, im too busy finding deals.
Im off to Brizzy for next weeks meeting so maybe if you are a brisbanite i could discuss it further with you then.
DD1
