Good points Tom.
You are involved in this side of things from some of your posts I've read.
What are costs (headworks, council contributions, etc) like in WA to bring a new (fringe) block to market?
One of the reasons, Melbourne was favoured by the large land development houses over the last four or five years was the far lower costs to bring blocks to market here compared with the very high costs in Sydney and even Brisbane.
I am a civil engineer for a civil construction company. Usually we are involved in government infrastructure jobs particularly bridges but occasionally we work for developers. I am certainyl no expert especially in the Perth market where to date I have never yet worked for a developer.
I guess my interest in this has peaked since deciding to buy a home after moving around the country from Sydney to Melbourne to Brisbane and now Perth. We are looking at settling here.
I tend to ask myself with most purchases how much would it cost to make this. We ask this for example in construction contracts every tiem we go out to tender on a component of the work. If it is cheaper to self perform this is what you do.
I would love to go into detail now but am about to go out to a bbq.
Just to get the ball rolling though look at the following;
A block never likely to go residential, well it is not in the Sydney 30 year plan anyway;
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-residential+land-nsw-sackville-2793513
Have not checked it for floods but it is undulating land so at least a portion of it would be appropriate even if you said 1/3 or 40 acres it is only 42,500 per acre.
Now look at this one ready to go;
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-kellyville-107003150
720,000.00 per acre
Understand the former does not have the same utility as the latter, i.e. it needs to have roads built, schools etc etc. You cannot tell me though with the premium between the two big blocks could not be made on the former and sold for a massive quid. I know I would rather live on a half acre block in Sackville if a new road was built to hornsby than on a 420sq.m block in kelyville.
On top of this there is then the 350k per hectare state gov levy and council levies plus a GST on the improved value which includes the other rotten taxes!
Anyway it is not a case of fringe land being expensive it si a case of fringe land which the government has deemed suitable being expensive. We are told we have a shortage of homes? We then are told we tax cigerrettes so people smoke less? We then tax the development of greenfields housing a heap? I wonder if this might be the problem?
Anyway I guess I should stick to what I know and build a bridge so I can get over it because nothing looks like changing.