A $900 million development on the Queensland and New South Wales border is tipped to reinvigorate the Tweed region. The proposed 10-year redevelopment on the corner of Wharf and Bay Streets by Elanor Investors Group, will include a mix of residential and commercial space. It proposes a 13-building project. Already the $723 million Tweed Valley Hospital at Cudgen is underway and expected to take its first patients in 2024, while the Tweed Mall is also set to undergo a massive overhaul. The flurry of development has sparked calls by local politicians to extend the Gold Coast Light Rail project through to the Tweed region. A study has been commissioned into the possibility of extending the project across the border with an updated expected on the study shortly. The options being investigated include a link from Coolangatta Airport to Tweed Heads or using the former Nerang-Tweed rail and continuing it through Coolangatta to Bay St, Wharf St and Minjungbal Dr.
Investment Will Ease Crisis
Encouraging development and investment are what will help ease the current housing crisis, according to Gold Coast Estate Agent, Andrew Bell. Bell says opportunities abound for property investors on the Gold Coast. He says high rental returns and capital growth means that the market is in a period of “investment utopia”. Bell says greater incentives are needed for developers to build affordable housing and governments need to encourage property investors as rental property numbers have been falling for years. “The rental crisis is simply an incredible shortage of properties that are owned for the purpose of providing rental accommodation to fellow Australians,” he says. “Measures must be taken to encourage and stimulate greater numbers of Australians to buy an investment property to increase the rental pool. “In most states, the number of properties that are either tenanted or available for tenancy has dropped between 15% and 20%.”
Quote of the Week
“Measures must be taken to encourage and stimulate greater numbers of Australians to buy an investment property to increase the rental pool.”
Gold Coast Estate Agent, Andrew Bell
Move In Together: RBA
The only respite most renters will get in the current crisis is to increase the number of people they live with, according to Reserve Bank Governor, Philp Lowe. Lowe told a Senate Estimates hearing that rents will keep rising and the only way to ease the pressure is to have more people on average in each house. Plenty are looking to do just that according to figures from Flatmates.com.au which had its busiest month on record in May with a further 69,400 people signing up to the platform. On the Gold Coast there are hundreds of prospective flatmates looking for somewhere to live. The website shows there are almost 1800 people actively looking for a room to rent with only 1200 listings available. Flatmates.com.au community manager Claudia Conley says it’s not just young people first out of home looking for somewhere to live. The website’s largest growing demographic is members aged 45 to 65 (up 10% in May).
329 New Homes Required A Day
New figures show population growth is continuing to surge with Australia’s population soaring by a record 497,000 people in calendar year 2022. The increase follows a record net overseas migration of 387,000 people. It is projected the increase will continue with 2.18 million people to be added to the population in the five years to FY-2027. The population growth leads to increased demand for housing at a time when dwelling approvals have crashed to a 13-year low. Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy says this drop in approvals is likely to continue until 2025. The Housing Industry Association says new home sales in May were 25% below pre-pandemic levels. HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt says continual interest rate rises will continue to dampen new home sales with finance becoming unobtainable for an increasing number of buyers. Australia needs to add 329 homes every day to Australia’s housing stock just to accommodate the 1.5 million net overseas migrants projected to arrive by FY2027.
Stock Levels Continue To Tighten
House are selling at a faster rate than properties are being listed for sale, market analysis by CoreLogic reveals. In the three months to May, 78,700 were sold, while only 68,250 properties were listed, according to CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless. “Despite the previously weak housing market conditions through the second half of last year, the sales to new listings ratio has held relatively high compared with pre-COVID levels,” Lawless says. The current ratio of sales to listings means it is a sellers’ market. Lawless says that vendors will continue to have the upper hand in the market, as stock levels tighten. As a result he says buyers will need to make more competitive offers. According to analysis by Suburbtrends, demand exceeds supply in 219 of 328 Australian markets. Suburbstrend founder Kent Lardner says listing volumes remain very low as a result of many potential sellers being unsure as to what they can move into if they do sell.
