Rockhampton, QLD Which Suburb

What's your thoughts on Frenchville??

We're considering buying in Frenchville.

Stay away from there (the next good deal is mine :p)

love the area up towards and past the school (north of Kerrigan street)

anything south of there (except all the Avenues) is just like the rest of Rocky (Koongal/Berserker)
 
Not looking so good in Rocky. No signs of recovery and if anything, it's getting worse. HTW had Rocky at "start of recovery" in last months' report, but back down to "bottom of market" this month. My property manager says there's been little change in vacancy rates from 12 months ago, still quite high. I'm not about to sell up but the opportunity cost is not getting any smaller and it's painful to endure.

From the HTW report:

Rockhampton
The Rockhampton and surrounding region is
experiencing a significant change in the local market.
This means good for some and not so good for
others. Buyers, it looks like your prayers have been
heard with local selling agents reporting a large drop
in values and sellers needing to come down and meet
the buyers at their level. The reasons for this are
quite clear and include:
? Large job cuts across the central Queensland
mining sector.
? A large number of newly constructed homes
on the northern and southern fringe of
Rockhampton have increased supply and
reduced demand in the rental market.
? Vacancy rates have increased and rental values
have reduced.
? Anxious landlords are flooding the market with
high volumes of property listings.
? General confidence and job security has declined
immensely.
However despite the doom and gloom beware the
hungry wolf, as many astute buyers are snapping up
their self proclaimed bargains in what some see as
the bottom of the property market cycle. Only time
will tell if this is in fact the case, yet with nine weeks
until Christmas, one cannot see any positive change
until at least autumn next year if at all.
 
Some good yields & ROIs available in Allenstown.

I purchased a large QLDer on 1100m2 block 50m from Allenstown State school and 50m from Allenstown shopping square for $190k. Currently have tenants paying $300 per week representing a Yield of 8%!

Really cant go wrong with those figures and there are plenty of bargains to be snapped up.

The other way to look at it as an investor, for the initial $20k cash input (Deposit & Stamp duty etc.) for the property, You can get a rough return on invested $ at around 15-20%, excluding any long term capital gains.

It really is a market to tap in to for a cheap cash flow positive investment right now.
 
^^^ if you are looking at those tables by HTW at the back of the property magazines with summaries of the suburbs, I would totally ignore them,

I even called them up years ago to clarify why a particular suburb I was looking at went from Bottom of the market to top of the market in 4 weeks, and they said all the data is automaically generated into a table!

not sure how good the in depth analysis are , as theyve lost all credibility in my eyes
 
Had an email come through from Rocky property managers last night, they were saying that they'd rented 18 properties out in the last week - vacancy rate is currently around the 5% mark - which is an improvement from the 6.2% it was a few months back.

Whishy, that's a good purchase for $190k! Decent area too.
 
^^^ if you are looking at those tables by HTW at the back of the property magazines with summaries of the suburbs, I would totally ignore them

Yeah, there's a fair bit of inconsistencies month to month in those tables, but their analysis seems to be ok. I haven't been keeping a super close eye on Rocky but from what I can see prices have indeed dropped. Ahh nothing to do but hang in there.
 
The upper end of the market in Rocky has taken a fair hit in the past 12 months while the lower end of the market has generally held steady. Rents were falling and vacancies rising for a while, although things look like they are slowly moving the right way now according to the REIQ's most recent media release.

HTW for some reason suggests that the unit market is very strong - the unit market makes up quite a small sector of the overall market and is probably represented as being better than the situation truly is in reality.

Rocky is still fairing considerably better than in neighbouring Gladstone and Mackay though (which makes sense given that Rocky doesn't generally experience the peaks and troughs to the extent the others do).

http://www.reiq.com/newsmedia/media...ht-as-key-queensland-regional-markets-improve
 
Just offloaded our IP in Norman Gardens (settled this week). Had some ridiculously low-ball offers and weird contract conditions floated, but got to a price which, while we're not overjoyed with, gave us with enough CG to make it feel like a worthwhile journey.

The low end (sub 250k) of the market is probably going to fare better, but I wouldn't be surprised if the flow-on from job losses in the Bowen Basin and the increase in new supply coming online on the north side of town starts to drag prices down significantly more between now and end of 2015.
 
I guess with the current situation in Rocky, this is where mindset becomes important. Tempting to just give up and offload the properties since there is not even a glimmer of recovery.

Both my properties have become vacant and it's taking a long time to find new tenants despite significant rent drops.

And Livingstone Council apparently approved a new land release at the
Pines Estate, one of the largest releases on the Capricorn Coast according to HTW. So a repeat of Gracemere with oversupply of new property dragging down rents and increasing vacancies.

Even if I sold I couldn't redeploy that money elsewhere as my serviceability isn't what it used to be, so I have to sit this out. Not a lesson I'll forget in a hurry! :(
 
Can I ask where in Rocky your properties are? And why do you think there is no hope of recovery? We currently don't have any vacancies and don't intend to ever sell but rents are flat and pm said they have some units which have been vacant since xmas
 
In Berserker and Park Avenue. Rocky is affected by the downturn in mining and who knows how long that will last. My PM tells me of shops and businesses closing down, and now there's the prospect of even more supply coming online with the new land release. Doesn't sound to me like a recovery is around the corner.
 
No doubt there is a down turn but you could also argue that the last 10 years were out of the ordinary, the economy appears to have taken a hit but it is still fairly diverse compared to most regional centres. Businesses are always opening and closing IMO. The over building by developers is a problem I agree especially what happened in Gracemere, hopefully this will slow and the market can remain balanced.
 
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