isn't the style of living nowadays tending toward the apartment/block accommodation?
people being more career minded, getting married later, having kids later, wanting to be close to the action - cbd - where they work and play, no hassles with where they live like gardening and maintenance issues.
not to mention actually affording to pay the mortgage or rent as the case may be.
Yes, but note that not all 1br units are created equal, and we might need them of a better standard given that a greater proportion will be let to longer term or more 'professional' tenants (with higher incomes/expectations) than in the past.
I would love to write a history of 1 bedroom or single persons accommodation in the last 100 years, but my guess is that it would go something like this:
early 1900s -: Single people were often lodgers who slept in the sleepout or (in the country) lived in quarters or another house on the farm.
1920s-50s: The 'done thing' was that people of marriagable age would live with their parents until they found a partner and got married. They might live in the sleep-out of their parents house until they married. After then they'd get a deposit together for a block of land on which they might build a shack, live in that and add bits to make a house.
A lot of single people (who didn't live with their parents) lived in boarding homes or some type of serviced accommodation rather than have their own flats. These included people in 'respectable' occupations.
However some purpose-built flats for independent people were built during the Art Deco period. But especially for a young woman, living in a pace of one's own before marriage was 'racy' and not really the done thing. Also during the Great Depression larger houses were often divided into flats or maisonettes.
Late 1960s: 'Generation gap' and rising incomes made it possible for young people to move out of home, even if they weren't married. There was also a flat boom which resulted in many '6 or 12 packs' being built in many of the less prestigious inner and middle suburbs. Hence there was the money, the demand, the supply and the acceptance of strata title all working together.
60s blocks were less fancy than the Art Deco units and may not have had private courtyards or internal laundry. There'd be a parking space or carport but rarely a garage However, unlike their parents place (which may still have had a wood stove) they were all-electric.
The average marriage age then was 22 and nearly all did so people who'd be living in these flats would generally only be in there for a couple of years. Hence they could be small and poky since most residents would only be in there for a short time and the novelty of being away from the olds was great.
Elsewhere you might have had villas rather than flats. These were mostly 2br with a courtyard, but were still dominated by renters.
Keep a watch on these as I believe that the demand for these (from many groups mentioned later) will outstrip supply.
Blocks of villas/units were all built by investors/developers, not individual families as is the case with houses. Hence their construction was more cyclical than housebuilding generally and there were spikes during various booms, eg early 1970s, late 1980s, early 2000s etc.
Single person accommodation in the early 2000s was funded by investors buying units in near-CBD areas and fuelled by overseas students (for the very small 1br units). CBD professionals (more likely to marry later or remain single) moved into the 'better' 1br units, however most of these are high-rise.
Population ageing, the aim for independent living and (especially) the larger number of widows will create demand at the older end of the spectrum as well.
And in the middle are the 'empty nesters', especially those who have divorced.
Hence whereas in the 60s it was mostly young singles who'd rent a 1br unit for a couple of years, now we've got a broader tenant base for 1-bedders, including 'battery hen' foreign students, young professionals, never marrieds, divorcees, empty nesters and always more seniors. The better paying end of this market is catered for by townhouses, but these are really very expensive and the two levels is bad for seniors. But the cheaper and middle end of this market is not well served, with the
good quality and well located 1960s-80s villa unit being the best approximation of what is wanted.
Unfortunately the composition of recent construction has satisfied some groups (eg students) more than others. This is partly because it is more profitable to go high-rise 1br than villa 1br due to land prices.
If you were building villas you'd probably build 2br instead of 1br since the extra area of a bedroom is not that much. This has been conventional wisdom and perhaps 90% of villas are either 2 or 3 bedroom. However other things like storage and security are important for the long-term renter or buyer and a good 1br with garage/storage and a good kitchen may well be more rentable than a poky 2br without these.
Hence I can see a gap between what the market wants and what's most profitable for the developer. But if you can buy well-located older units with desired features that are at or below replacement value then I think you're on a winner.
Peter
