Property developer One Living, backed by former Macquarie banker turned investment manager Chris Green’s investment firm, has unveiled plans to bring more institutional capital into housing to help address the national supply crisis.

The New York-based investor has focused his firm, GreenPoint Partners, on addressing the supply shortage hitting middle market housing in Australia.

It is backing the new One Living business to develop more than 1000 units along the eastern seaboard. The new firm is starting with a development on Mona Vale Road, on the border of Mona Vale and Pymble, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with around 140 apartments planned. They are eyeing off more sites across the city.

With cost pressures rising in the industry, One Living’s model is to be a vertically integrated developer-builder, so it can respond directly to the housing gap by removing the cost inefficiencies embedded in traditional residential delivery.

“We are building a platform designed to operate at scale and starting in a market where there’s a clear need for quality, attainable housing,” One Living joint managing director Joseph Scuderi said.

“It’s that missing middle – it’s that attainable end of housing… that’s what most Australians invest into and what Australians can actually afford.”

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="798dfa93-4941-4db6-a696-31e9dc18e81c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.31.50%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=mKBqi5C_DmeiXS.AtJkcR8LQIxqCqmFi" />

GreenPoint Partners brings years of experience assembling and scaling real estate operating businesses across major markets. And Green sees a big opportunity in Australia.

“For its size, sophistication and importance to the community, Australia’s living sector has remained largely under-institutionalised, which represents significant opportunity,” Green said. “GreenPoint identified that gap, assembled the right team, and is backing One Living to build a platform that is aligned to market needs.”

Green said being a builder-developer would give the company the capacity and flexibility it required to deliver reasonably-priced homes.

“We want it to be at that attainable level; not super high end luxury but at that attainable level,” he said.

<img alt="Mona Vale" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="74a5344a-4b26-4d4a-ada3-056b1220be77" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%202.32.15%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=vY8hXHO4reBMdO8ZXMWCNtGZJofUPQ3j" />

&nbsp;

One Living will undertake a component of affordable housing in its schemes, which it will own and operate, and it could also run build-to-rent on some sites.

Green praised local policy settings.

“The NSW government is being very supportive, strategic and pragmatic in terms of how do we generate more supply of housing,” he said. “We think it’s actually positive for development and the bit that’s been lacking at that attainable level is that it’s lots of relatively small private developers, whereas we want to create an institutional platform.”

One Living is also&nbsp;looking at high-density projects and could take on more institutional funding in the future.

“The way we will be able to achieve economies of scale is through size,” Green added.

Joel Robinson

One Living enters Sydney's new apartment market with Northern Beaches site acquisition

It's been several years since there's been an opportunity to buy a brand new townhome in Melbourne's coastal suburb of Mordialloc. Even apartment developments in recent times have been few and far between in the area.

Local developer LDS Property identified the gap in new housing, securing a site on White Street, directly opposite&nbsp;Woodlands Golf Club Mordialloc. They've recently launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-townhouses/wm-residences-mordialloc-102-white-street-mordialloc-vic-3195">WM Residences</a>, just 13 townhouses which they have already started building.

Projects by Buxton Director Heath Thompson, who is selling WM Residences, says the townhouses x that perfect middle ground be

"Mordialloc residents have had limited options to downsize within the suburb, often forcing them to look elsewhere despite long-standing ties to the area," Thompson says.

"With very little comparable new supply coming to market, projects like WM Residences are well placed, particularly as buyers look to capitalise on current conditions amid constrained supply."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6109]

The development, designed by regarded architecture firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/ewert-leaf">Ewert Leaf</a>,&nbsp;adopts a deliberately restrained architectural approach, focusing on simplicity, durability and liveability rather than overt design gestures.

The boutique scale is central to the offering. With only 13 three-bedroom residences, each home is configured to prioritise functional layouts and everyday use, supported by private terraces and secure two-car garages.

Ewert Leaf’s design response leans into a calm, neutral material palette. Interiors are defined by oak flooring, white walls and soft finishes, creating a consistent and understated backdrop. The approach avoids trend-driven detailing in favour of longevity, with an emphasis on natural light and spatial clarity.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6110]

Beyond aesthetics, the homes are designed to meet contemporary performance expectations. Each residence targets a minimum 6-star energy rating, incorporating double glazing, comprehensive insulation and all-electric Bosch appliances.

The project’s location supports a walkable coastal lifestyle, sitting within close proximity to Mordialloc’s foreshore, Main Street retail strip and the train station. Local cafés and dining venues, including Suburbia Deli and Hendriks Café, are within a short walk, reinforcing the area’s established neighbourhood character.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=134646 project_image_fid=6116]

While <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/mordialloc-vic-3195">Mordialloc</a> is often defined by its beach and pier, the project taps into other areas of day to day living, offering easy access to local food, casual dining and transport, rather than positioning itself purely as a lifestyle retreat.

WM Residences reflects a continued trend across Melbourne’s coastal suburbs towards smaller-scale, design-led townhouse developments, particularly on infill sites where proximity to amenity is already established.

With construction commenced prior to its market entry, the project aligns with a growing preference among buyers for developments with visible progress and defined delivery timeframes.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=134646]

WM Residences fills gap in Mordialloc townhouse market

&nbsp;

Developer GURNER™ Group has revealed $1.65 billion in residential sales nationally across the 12 months to December 2025, driven largely by the continued momentum of its Docklands wellness-focused precinct, Elysium Fields.

The sales result was generated across seven projects in Victoria and New South Wales, headlined by Elysium Fields, GURNER™’s $2.75 billion mixed-use precinct planned for Harbour Esplanade in Docklands.

The project has recorded more than $500 million in sales across the first three towers, equating to around 580 apartments sold.

The first tower, Helios, has now sold out of its 240 private residences, with GURNER™ preparing to release a premium penthouse collection comprising 15 three-bedroom penthouses in coming weeks.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370975]

Elysium Fields is being developed on the long-held 20,000 sqm Docklands site at 208-226 Harbour Esplanade, which had remained undeveloped for more than two decades prior to GURNER™ taking over the project around four years ago.

Construction has now commenced across four towers ranging between 18 and 30 storeys, with Hamilton Marino and Maxcon appointed as builders.

Once complete, the precinct is expected to comprise around 1,100 residences, alongside retail, hospitality and public realm uses integrated throughout the site.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370981]

Designed by Fraser &amp; Partners in collaboration with GURNER™ Design House, the project has been positioned around the developer’s broader focus on wellness-led residential living.

“We don’t sell apartments. We create a true luxury lifestyle that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere in the market today,” Founder and Executive Chairman Tim Gurner said.

“To deliver that requires an extraordinary level of detail, coordination and discipline across multiple verticals, from design and hospitality through to wellness and service.”

“We’ve always believed that living extends far beyond the physical residence. It’s about how you feel the moment you arrive, how you live day-to-day, and the ecosystem that supports that.” 
[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370977]

The project’s design places a heavy focus on landscaping, wellness amenities and biophilic design principles.

Plans include around 3,700 sqm of landscaped gardens and open space throughout the precinct, alongside a retail and dining offering spanning approximately 5,000 sqm.

The broader public realm strategy centres around what GURNER™ describes as the “Path of Life”, an urban forest and landscaped pedestrian environment intended to connect the various buildings and wellness spaces across the precinct.

The apartments themselves will incorporate a range of wellness-focused inclusions, including purified air and water systems, circadian lighting, antimicrobial surfaces, and optional in-home wellness upgrades.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370980]

Gurner said the company’s experience through its Saint Haven wellness clubs had directly informed the residential offering now being incorporated into Elysium Fields.

“We’re seeing a clear global shift toward longevity, performance and proactive health,” Gurner said.

“Our role is to deliver that in a way that feels seamless, highly private and beautifully resolved within the environments we create.”

A large component of the wellness offering is planned through the resident amenity and health facilities proposed within the precinct.

That includes plans for bathing and recovery facilities spread throughout the towers, incorporating mineral pools, saunas, steam rooms, flotation therapy, red light therapy and wellness lounges.

The developer is also seeking approvals for what it describes as a “reverse ageing medical clinic” within the precinct.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370978]

According to project information released by the group, the proposed facility would include cryotherapy, IV infusion therapy, infrared and dry saunas, PEMF beds, MRIs, DEXA scans, brain scans and blood analysis services.

Within the first tower, Helios, residents will also have access to a dedicated amenity offering known as the Sky Private Club.

The upper 15 levels of the building will include private lounges, dining spaces, rooftop amenities and optional private wellness studios integrated within residences.

The Helios tower itself comprises 260 apartments ranging between 60 sqm and 300 sqm, including a collection of penthouses.

That includes a planned two-storey penthouse spanning around 600 sqm with uninterrupted bay views.

The Elysium Fields precinct is being delivered in partnership with Digital Harbour Holdings, a consortium that includes the Liberman family, which controls the development rights across the Docklands site.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=144441 project_image_fid=370979]

The sales result comes as GURNER™ continues expanding its national development pipeline beyond Victoria.

“We have a strong pipeline across Australia and are now focused on scaling into key markets including New South Wales and Queensland, while continuing to build on our Melbourne base,” Gurner said.

“We currently have more than $3 billion in the market, growing to over $5 billion by October, and expect to materially outperform last year in the 2026 calendar year.”

The result also reflects the continued strength of the upper-end apartment market in Melbourne, particularly for owner-occupier-focused product with large-scale amenity and lifestyle offerings.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=144441]

Record result anchored by the Group’s “utopian” Elysium Fields precinct – defying market headwinds in Docklands.

Elysium Fields drive Gurner to $1.65 billion in apartment sales over 2025

National Australia Bank (NAB) will fund <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/palmera-residences-gold-coast-18-garfield-terrace-surfers-paradise-qld-4217">Palmera</a>, a $1 billion, 52-level luxury residential tower being developed by Central Equity in one of the Gold Coast’s most tightly held coastal locations at Northcliffe.

The project, launched recently by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/central-equity">Central Equity</a>, one of Victoria’s largest private residential developers, comes at a time when construction funding for large residential developments has become increasingly competitive as lenders tighten exposure to the sector.

Multiplex has been appointed the builder, and construction is now underway.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365784]

Since its first project, Central Equity has delivered more than 85 residential developments with a combined end value exceeding $8 billion.

Palmera reflects Central Equity’s growing focus on the Gold Coast luxury apartment market and continues a relationship between Central Equity and NAB that dates back to the late 1980s, when the bank funded one of Melbourne’s earliest inner-city residential towers at a time when high-rise apartment living in the CBD was largely unproven.

“NAB’s funding of Central Equity’s $36 million CBD development in the late 1980’s to the financing of the billion-dollar tower today highlights the long-term relationship between the two organisations in delivering major residential projects” said Central Equity Founder and Chairman Eddie Kutner.

He said NAB’s early support was instrumental in helping establish the company’s development model.

“When we commenced our first residential tower in the late 1980s the concept of funding off-the-plan apartments was still largely untested in Australia,” Kutner said.

“NAB recognised the opportunity early and supported the project when others were uncertain. That relationship has now continued for more than 37 years across many developments.”

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365771]

Central Equity was established in 1987 when Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank precinct were still dominated by warehouses and commercial buildings. Fewer than 100 residents lived in Southbank at the time, and large-scale residential development in the inner city was not widely considered.

Recognising changing demographics and lifestyle preferences, the company began developing high-rise residential projects designed to bring permanent residents into the city centre.

Central Equity has provided accommodation for approximately 40,000 residents across Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank, while also incorporating supporting infrastructure including essential lifestyle facilities like retail spaces, childcare facilities and neighbourhood activity centres.

Central Equity has spent many years assembling the Palmera development site on the corner of Garfield Terrace and Frederick Street in Northcliffe, creating a supersite of around 3,300 sqm.

The developer said the Palmera apartment tower reflects its long-term view of the Gold Coast as a growing and increasingly diversified economy.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=108274 project_image_fid=365768]

Supported by infrastructure including the light rail network, major road upgrades expanded education, hospital and medical facilities and continued expansion at the Gold Coast Airport with more international and domestic flights.

Positioned in the tightly held Northcliffe precinct, the 52-level tower will deliver 347 apartments, targeting buyers seeking a high-end coastal lifestyle, from downsizers to interstate investors.

Designed by Marchese Partners with interiors by DBI, Palmera has been conceived as a next-generation residential offering, featuring a collection of oversized apartments, with premium three-bedroom residences offering sweeping northern views stretching from Surfers Paradise through to Burleigh Heads.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=108274]

NAB funds $1 billion Surfers Paradise apartment development, Palmera

Two years after completing one of the newest developments in North Sydney, developer <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/aqualand-australia">Aqualand</a> is turning its attention to the rapidly evolving St Leonards apartment market.

The developer, which completed AURA by Aqualand on North Sydney's Walker Street, has lodged plans for a 5,918 sqm site at <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/33-37-herbert-street-st-leonards-nsw-2065">33-37 Herbert Street, St Leonards,</a> seeking approval for a pair of residential towers rising above a shared podium opposite Royal North Shore Hospital.

The proposal forms part of the broader transformation underway across the St Leonards-Crows Nest precinct, where former industrial and commercial sites are increasingly being redeveloped into high-density mixed-use projects tied to major transport infrastructure.

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="2cc428cf-fe70-4cac-9cd5-264ad53af62c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.56%E2%80%AFAM.png?VersionId=otKSnHtbjAvAddOnovyXQMgcAwE6DMe1" />

According to the planning documents, the site sits “within the St Leonards–Crows Nest Strategic Centre, identified by the NSW Government as a key area for accommodating future jobs and housing across Sydney.”

The proposal has been designed by fjcstudio, formerly FJMT Studio, and is being progressed through the State Significant Development pathway due to its scale and affordable housing provision.

The scheme would comprise 413 apartments, including 46 affordable housing units, alongside retail and commercial uses fronting Herbert Street. The project would also include communal open space, landscaping, a swimming pool, gymnasium, children’s play areas and podium-level resident amenities.

Planning documents show the development would consist of a part-13, part-39 storey tower form positioned above a four-storey podium.

“The development comprises a unified podium that activates the street interface, and two setback towers to accommodate new housing supply while maintaining an appropriate human scale at ground level,” fjcstudio noted in its Design Report.

The northern and southern towers have been shaped to respond to the surrounding skyline while also limiting overshadowing impacts to nearby public open space, particularly Talus Reserve.

The design report said the differing tower heights were intended to “contribute to a varied skyline while responding to the surrounding built form context and solar access considerations.”

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="36da62dc-ff9e-41f2-a7e3-7be38373751c" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.45%E2%80%AFAM_0.png?VersionId=Mo6Rp2r.XRLTzIfg_PEEpw8NepDH8UBs" />

The site sits directly opposite Royal North Shore Hospital and within walking distance of both St Leonards Station and the new Crows Nest Metro station.

While the site itself sits just outside the formal Crows Nest Transport Oriented Development boundary, the planning documents repeatedly reference its alignment with the broader TOD objectives reshaping the Lower North Shore.

“The site is located adjacent to St Leonards Station and in close proximity to Crows Nest Metro which is within the Crows Nest Transit Orientated Development Accelerated Precinct which has been identified by the NSW Government to support housing delivery,” the Design Verification Statement noted.

According to fjcstudio, the project has been designed to respond to the broader transition occurring across St Leonards, where increasing residential density is being concentrated around transport infrastructure and employment hubs.

“The broader precinct is undergoing significant change, with a mix of existing mid-rise buildings and newer high-density developments,” the report stated.

“Recent and approved projects indicate a consistent shift toward taller built form, typically organised as tower-and-podium typologies with more active ground levels.”

The proposal includes close to 6,000 sqm of retail and commercial space across the ground floor and podium levels, designed to create a more activated street edge along Herbert Street.

Aqualand’s plans would also introduce a landscaped podium shared between the two towers, with communal open space in the form of a podium rooftop designed to support resident interaction and improve urban greening outcomes. The scheme would also introduce pocket parks at the northern and southern ends of the site, including a landscaped area at the corner of Herbert and Ella streets designed to improve pedestrian amenity and soften the streetscape.

&nbsp;

The proposal is being progressed through the NSW Government’s Housing Delivery Authority pathway, which was introduced to accelerate housing supply across the state. The application was declared State Significant Development in April 2025 following an expression of interest process.

<img alt="Aqualand" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="faf6d97d-2671-454f-b85a-fe1c6a7be608" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-05-28%20at%209.51.49%E2%80%AFAM.png?VersionId=diVd28OBVr5.YV.7prrOz.uAanwwwm7a" />

St Leonards has been particularly active with new developments in recent weeks. Developer SP Setia’s <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/news/nsw/first-look-sp-setia-targets-st-leonards-skyline-with-40-storey-tod-tower">plans for a new 42-storey tower</a> recently went on exhibition through the same pathway, while <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/news/nsw/first-look-stockland-plans-52-storey-538-apartment-st-leonards-tower">Stockland’s 52-storey tower proposal</a> was also recently unveiled.

Aside from the St Leonards project, which is expected to take around nine months to move through the approvals process ahead of a potential 2027 launch, Aqualand is also preparing to launch Boronia, a new apartment project in Roseville comprising around 111 apartments on Larkin Street.

The developer also has approvals in place for the next stage of the Barangaroo precinct, which will feature new residential, retail, hospitality and community uses, alongside a new metro entry across the five-hectare site.

More than 50 new retail destinations are planned for Central Barangaroo, alongside a 270-metre-long boulevard connecting Hickson Park to Nawi Cove. Together with Harbour Park, more than 50 per cent of the precinct will comprise public open space and parkland.

First look: Aqualand joins St Leonards apartment party

Terry Ryder

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Most property-watchers are aware of the Tasmanian property boom, with attention focused on Hobart as the national leader for capital city price growth, for suburbs with the shortest time-on-market and for the nation’s lowest vacancy rates.
But there’s more to the Tassie story than Hobart. The second city Launceston is also thriving.
Launceston has seen good price growth in the last 12 months, with double-digit increases in the median house prices of several suburbs. This market also features vacancies below 2% and strong rental yields above 5.5%. 
And the future looks strong, starting with the underlying economy – always pivotal in the fortunes of property markets.
The Launceston City Deal, financially supported by all three levels of Government, has secured Launceston’s future as a “University Town”. 
Under the plan, Launceston will be the recipient of serious spending on infrastructure for industries such as education, construction, the Defence Force, transport and forestry. Launceston General Hospital is being upgraded, new industrial estates are emerging and new housing estates are opening up. 
In the 2016 Census, the population of Launceston was 81,000. Other reports suggest around 100,000 live in and around Launceston. 
It is one of Australia’s oldest cities and is home to many historic buildings, including the General Post Office. It’s the commercial hub for northern Tasmania’s agricultural and pastoral activities which, in recent years, have evolved from the growing of apples to viticulture. 
Wool is also an important industry while $130 million has been spent on the Meander Dam and irrigation infrastructure to support the agricultural sector. 
Launceston has a diverse range of industries, including manufacturing, minerals and resources, commercial shipping, tourism and educational facilities. 
Human pharmaceuticals manufacturing earns the region about $130 million each year. Tasmanian Alkaloids, located near Westbury, is the largest exporter of opiates from which codeine and morphine are derived. The company employs 200 local people. 
Premium beer drinkers will be familiar with the name James Boag. The Brewery employs around 150 and produces 76,000,000 litres of beer annually. 
Manufacturing makes the largest contribution to the local economy, earning over $1 billion per year. George Town Seafoods announced in April 2016 that it will double production at its processing facility. The business employs 70 people in peak production periods. 
The Bell Bay Aluminium smelter, about 45km from Launceston, is one of the state’s biggest employers claiming 1,500 direct and indirect jobs. 
Tourism employs 2,500 and is worth $340 million a year to the local economy. Around 1.29 million passengers used Launceston airport in 2015, and following a redevelopment completed in mid- 2016, the airport expects to cater for two million passengers each year by 2030. 
Numerous wineries operate along the Tamar Valley which produces about 40% of Tasmania’s premium wines. Another main attraction is Cataract Gorge, home to the longest single span chairlift in the world while Launceston is often called the ‘Garden City’ because of its many parklands. 
Launceston Airport offers regular flights to Melbourne (where travellers can connect with international flights), Sydney and Brisbane. 
Launceston is now one of the leading property markets in regional Australia, attracting mainland investors. The city features prominently in The Price Predictor Index published by hotspotting.com.au, as it has several suburbs with growing sales activity, while the nearby West Tamar LGA also has growth markets. 
Affordable Invermay (median house price $248,000) typifies the growth in this region, the number of annual sales leaping from 64 in 2017 to 99 early in 2018. 
The increased sales activity has delivered a median price rise of 8% in the last 12 months. 
On the other side of the North Esk River, the inner- city of Launceston has seen the median house price grow 23%, resulting in a median price of $449,000. 
The median house price in Newstead, another inner- city suburb with 121 annual sales, has risen 13% to $365,000, while Norwood is up 13% to $348,000. Further out, the median house price in Hadspen is $315,000 following a 14% rise in 12 months. 
Interstate buyers have become common, attracted by the state’s affordability, combined with positive developments in the city. 
Agents have reported that about 30% of buyers in Launceston hail from Sydney - and many intend to move to Launceston rather than buying for investment purposes. 
 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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terryryder-YECXbqmri2

More to Tasmania than Hobart as Launceston also thrives: Terry Ryder

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I’ve been tipping recovery in the Perth market in the past six months and now we are seeing the first signs of a return to price growth in some sectors. 
Several research sources still have the Perth market overall in slightly negative territory in terms of price movements, but my latest analysis for the Price Predictor Index shows that there is price growth in the upper end of the Perth market. 
When city markets are at the early phase of a growth cycle, the upmarket suburbs are often the first to show growth (and it ripples out later to the middle market and then to the cheaper areas).
That’s what happened in recent years in firstly Sydney and later in Melbourne.
Now the latest price data is showing the beginnings of something meaningful in Perth, which has numerous suburbs with median house prices above $1 million.
That top end market has seen growth in their median prices in the past three months and in annual terms also. 
This trend is widespread across the Perth prestige market. Suburbs with rising prices include Nedlands, Claremont, Applecross, Shelley, Cottesloe, Dalkeith, Mosman Park, Trigg and Floreat. 
All have median house prices above $1 million, while Dalkeith and Cottesloe are both above $2 million.
The latest price growth data from CoreLogic finds double-digit annual growth in median prices in most of those suburbs. 
In fact, the median price growth data has Cottesloe, Daglish, Dalkeith and Shelley all growing more than 20 percent in the past year, with a big chunk of that growth occurring in the most recent quarter.
This is a little misleading because it doesn’t mean property values are growing to that degree. It’s simply a product of the vagaries of median prices, which can be particularly volatile in those top-end markets where a few big-ticket sales than skew the data.
But valuers and buyers agents I spoke to during a visit to Perth last week confirmed that values are up 10 percent (ish) in many of the million-dollar suburbs.
Confidence that the upturn is sustainable comes from revival in the state’s economy, especially in the mining sector, and the large numbers of jobs being created. As the WA economy improves, businesses thrive and business people become more confident in their real estate purchases.
According to the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry biannual review, the WA economy is rebounding, will grow this year and should start delivering a better jobs market and higher wages.
The report is supported by separate research by the ANZ that suggests the WA economy is back among the fastest-growing in the country. CCI chief economist Rick Newnham says the slowdown in the state - that previously hit the jobs market, property prices and confidence - has come to an end. 
The drop in business investment from the peak of the resources boom has also run its course. One symptom is that spending on gold exploration in WA climbed to its highest level on record in 2017. 
We’re now seeing evidence of those stronger economic prospects playing out in improvements in the Perth property market, notably in the top end suburbs.
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Double-digit annual growth seen in Perth pockets

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Research on price growth over time often contradics long-held beliefs about where you get the best growth.
Information put together recently by PIPA found that Hobart had achieved the highest percentage growth in house prices among the capital cities over the past 15 years, while Sydney had recorded the lowest growth.
There are similarly surprising outcomes from publication by CoreLogic of the growth in various jurisdictions across Australia in the four most recent five-year periods.
One of the things this shows is that, overall, the past five years have been quite tame for growth in house prices.
Media has often referred in the past few years to an unprecedented national property boom, but I have maintained that we have not had a national boom and the growth recorded in the places with strong markets, such as Sydney and Melbourne, has been far from unprecedented.
These CoreLogic figures would tend to confirm that. They examine the five-year periods up to January in each of 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018.
In terms of national average price growth, the five-year period to January 2003 was the most prolific, by a considerable margin. Values (national average) grew 62 percent in the five years to 2003, while in the five years to January 2018 the growth was just 38 percent. The five-year period up to 2008 (national rise of 44 percent) was also higher than the most recent period.
There were all kinds of regional differences within each of those five-year periods, reinforcing once again that we do not have a single national market, but many different local markets.
In the five years up to 2003, which was the last time we had a genuine national property boom, the combined capitals grew 64 percent and the combined rest of state (the regional areas) rose 54 percent. But the leading jurisdiction in the nation for that period was Regional NSW, which rose 84 percent, followed by Canberra (up 79 percent) and Regional Victoria (up 66 percent).
Five of the capital cities grew more than 55 percent in that period, while Perth rose 46 percent and Hobart was up 38 percent. Everywhere in Australia, both city and regional, showed some kind of meaningful growth.
In the five years to 2008, regional areas were dominant, with the combined regional areas up 53 percent while the capital cities increased only 42 percent.
This was a period when Western Australia was the leading market in the nation, with Regional WA up 121 percent in five years - mostly resources centres like Port Hedland and Karratha, as well as lifestyle towns like Mandurah, recording extraordinary growth. The Perth market rose 102 percent in that period.
That was also the time frame in which Tasmania caught the boom wave from the mainland (rather similar to Tasmania right now), with Hobart (up 75 percent) the No.2 city for growth after Perth, while Regional Tasmania grew 89 percent. 
The regional areas of Queensland and the Northern Territory also had substantial price rises in that five-year period.
Meanwhile, in those five years to 2008, Sydney rose only 12 percent. It was mediocre also during the next five-year period, up to 2013, growing just 9 percent over five years. This is why Sydney ranked eighth and last among the capital cities in the 15-year capital growth figures published by PIPA.
Overall, that five-year period up to 2013 was the weakest nationally in recent times. The only place that showed much uplift during that time was the Northern Territory, with Darwin up 32 percent and Regional NT up 38 percent.
At that time, prices were going backwards in Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and a number of regional areas.
Then, in the most recent five-year stanza, Sydney rose 64 percent and Melbourne 56 percent. To put into perspective, remember that leading markets in the five years to 2008 grew more than 100 percent and the national leaders in the five years to 2003 increased 79-84 percent.
The only other places to show much uplift in the past five years were Regional NSW (up 38 percent) and Hobart, which started to show the beginnings of its current boom 12-18 months ago.
In this latest five years, prices went backwards in Perth and Regional WA, as well as in Darwin (whicb dropped 20 percent ) and Regional NT.
Overall, the figures confirm that we have many different markets in Australia and that, at any given point in time, they are not all moving in the same direction or at the same speed.
And that, contrary to popular belief, the major cities do not always out-perform the smaller cities or the regional areas. 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Five year periods actually show tame house price growth: Terry Ryder

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Real estate abounds with myths and misconceptions, most of them contradicted by the research evidence.
Perhaps the oldest and most enduring of property’s cliches is that you get the best capital growth in the prime inner-city suburbs.
That old furphy is usually stated as a self-evident truth without supporting evidence, or with a few cherry-picked examples that appear to back the theory.
The truth is, superior long-term growth can be found in all manner of places. The key elements driving growth seldom relate to proximity to an icon, like the Sydney CBD.
You’re just as likely to find outstanding growth rates in middle-ring suburbs, the affordable outer-ring areas and in selected regional centres, while some iconic locations have poor growth rates (Surfers Paradise being a standout example).
Cheaper areas often shine because they attract the great mass of buyer demand, thanks to their affordability.
Following four years of strong price growth in Sydney, most suburbs have attractive long-term growth rates (average annual growth in median prices over 10 years), despite Sydney’s below-par performance between 2003 and 2013.
Many now have long-term capital growth averages above 10 percent a year. And the top performers are widely spread across the Sydney metropolitan area.
Inner-city Burwood (median price $2 million) has the same long-term growth rate (10.4 percent per year) as Busby ($640,000), which is out west near Liverpool.
Balmain ($2.17 million) and Canley Vale ($820,000) both have growth rates around 10 percent per year.
Emerton, out west near Blacktown with a median price of $540,000, has a slightly better capital growth rate (10.5 percent) than Eastwood, with a median of $1.87 million (10.2 percent).
Seriously upmarket Mosman (median $3.87 million), has a modest growth average of 6.2 percent, whereas Lethbridge Park (median $520,000) has averaged 10.2 percent, despite its downmarket image and location (part of the City of Blacktown).
St Marys ($660,000), near Penrith, and nearby Tregear ($505,000), have growth rates above 10 percent per year, on a par with Rose Bay ($4.1 million) and considerably better than Gordon ($2.5 million), where growth has averaged 7.6 percent per year.
Islington ($670,000), a suburb of Newcastle, is equal to Hurstville ($1.6 million) in Sydney’s south.
Having some kind of stigma is no barrier to good capital growth.
So it doesn’t surprise me to see new research which refutes one of the most cherished beliefs in real estate – that areas with high crime rates have inferior capital growth.
The report shows that affordable areas attract strong demand, generating above-average price growth, regardless of the local crime statistics. This is particularly so if a cheaper area is undergoing gentrification.
According to RiskWise Property Research, housing in high-crime areas across Australia is outperforming the general property market. This correlates with Hotspotting analysis which shows that low-priced locations, including those stigmatised as “problem” areas, often have strong capital growth.
“The research house discovered high-crime areas, despite expectations, are trumping their safer neighbouring suburbs when comparing their five-year growth to the city’s median,” says RiskWise CEO Doron Peleg.
He says investors commonly attribute too much weight to crime figures and should more objectively analyse the financial risks when making property investment decisions. 
“Our nationwide research actually found gentrifying suburbs with high crime typically deliver strong price growth and outperform the local benchmark. 
“We found affordable high-crime areas with significant gentrification are likely to produce strong price growth, particularly when dwelling prices in the inner and middle rings are unaffordable.” 
In Melbourne, some suburbs significantly outperformed the market. Frankston North, a notable downmarket suburb in the far south-east, delivered growth of 102% over the past five years. 
“Our research shows that suburbs like Frankston North are not outliers and similar results can be found in each of the major cities,” Peleg says. 
“Busby in the western suburbs of Sydney is another example. This suburb consistently endured some of the highest gun violence rates across the city, yet it delivered growth above the median for Greater Sydney.” 
In Sydney, eight of the Top 10 high-crime areas outperformed the market due to very strong demand from owner-occupiers and investors for affordable properties. 
“Together, these high-crime Sydney suburbs delivered outstanding five-year growth of 87% for houses and 65% for units, outperforming the Sydney price growth benchmark,” he says. 
“Brisbane and Gold Coast high-crime areas also typically outperformed the market.” 
While price growth in Adelaide and Perth was below the local benchmark, high-crime areas undergoing significant gentrification delivered strong growth. For example, Prospect in Adelaide outperformed the local housing market with 26% median price increase over the past five years. 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Sydney's cheaper suburbs are outperforming the upmarket areas for price growth: Hotspotting's Terry Ryder

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Two apparently contradictory things are happening in real estate – sales of residential land have fallen (a lot) but the prices being paid are rising (sharply).
In Sydney the rate of sale of residential lots has almost halved over three years, but prices (to quote a popular pun in real estate media) have gone through the roof.
How can that be? Do the laws of supply and demand no longer apply in Australia?
The answers to these questions lie at the heart of the affordability discussion.
And a clue to the answers lie in an announcement earlier this week: that a New South Wales state government decision is set to add as much as $50,000 to the cost of new house-and-land packages in Sydney.
Prices for residential allotments and new dwellings are rising so sharply because the costs of creating new shovel-ready land, and the homes that are built there, are constantly rising.
Those costs are escalating primarily because the housing industry is a beloved cash cow for politicians everywhere. All three levels of government milk the housing sector for revenue like there’s no tomorrow. 
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian came to power mouthing platitudes about making housing affordability one of her key priorities. But her government regularly announces decisions that make the problem worse.
Gladys is not alone. This is an issue across the nation. Every time a state or territory government that brings down an annual budget, affordability gets worse because there are always new taxes, fees and charges imposed on the industry that creates dwellings for Australian households.
On 19 February The Australian reported that “house prices on greenfield sites in Sydney could rise by as much as $50,000 following the NSW Government’s decision to uncap infrastructure levies on developers”.
It reported: “The government is about to lift the cap on section 94 levies — how much councils charge developers for infrastructure. A recent application by Blacktown council for the Marsden Park development, successful with the government’s Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, was for the $30,000 per home cap to be lifted to $87,000.
“In August, the UDIA and the Property Council wrote to the Premier saying: “Housing affordability is one of the NSW government’s three chief priorities announced when you became Premier this year. However there are several recent policy initiatives from the government that run contrary to achieving this outcome looking ahead. Changes to biodiversity regulations ... could add between $20,000 and $30,000 per lot while uncapping section 94 could add anywhere between $30,000 to $80,000 per dwelling.’’
When you understand that these decisions are a few among many that add to the cost structure of those who create new dwellings, you begin to see why real estate is so much more expensive in Sydney than elsewhere.
The latest Residential Land Report published by the Housing Industry Association shows that the median lot price in Sydney is more than double those in Brisbane and Adelaide, almost four times the median price in Hobart, and 55% higher than in Melbourne.
The report found that the median vacant residential land lot price nationally hit an all-time high of $267,368 in the September 2017 Quarter, up 10.9 per cent on the same period in 2016.
But land prices rose faster in the capital cities, up 12.8 per cent annually on average.
Sydney was the most expensive capital with the cost per square metre at $1,051, followed by Perth ($752), Melbourne ($737) and Adelaide ($637), while Hobart was the cheapest ($180).
HIA senior economist Shane Garrett says supply is struggling to keep pace with demand, leading to greater housing affordability issues.
“The high cost of new residential land is at the heart of Australia’s housing affordability crisis,” he says. “The housing industry’s ability to ramp up the supply of new dwellings as demand dictates is hampered by the inconsistency of the land supply pipeline. The time it takes for land to be made available to builders is unnecessarily long.”
These delays add to costs. Mix in the constant intrusion of new taxes, fees and charges, and you have the nub of the affordability issue.
It’s easy to see why it’s difficult for find an affordable house in Sydney, when you pay $480,000 for the typical home site, even though the average lot size keeps gets smaller – and despite the reality that the number of lot sales fell to below 250,000 in the September 2017 Quarter, compared to around 470,000 in the December 2014 Quarter (but the median price has risen from $340,000 to $480,000 in that time).
In Melbourne you pay $310,000 for the typical block of land, before considering the cost of building the house.
“The ability of new home building activity to respond to this increased demand has been held back by insufficient supply of shovel-ready residential land,” says the Residential Land Report.
So it means that the number of land sales has dropped not because of lower demand, but because of lower supply. That shortage, plus the rising cost structures imposed by state governments and local councils, means prices rise relentlessly.
In capital city Australia, the number of lot sales peaked in mid-2015 and has been trending steadily downwards ever since. But the median lot price has risen from around $250,000 to over $310,000 in that time frame.
 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Residential land sales fall but prices paid rise? Terry Ryder

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One of the great absurdities of real estate research is the notion that you can encapsulate price growth for a major city in a single figure. 
The Greater Sydney area has a population of 4.82 million (2016 Census) and contains over 700 suburbs. They include markets as diverse as Macquarie Park versus Macquarie Fields and Newtown versus Campbelltown.
They’re not all doing to the same thing at any one time, nor moving at the same speed.
But the research houses would have us believe that you can distil all the sales activity in these contrasting places into a single growth figure that makes sense.
It’s crazy to even try, but that’s what they do. And media laps it up, so long as it’s presented in a neat little media release package that makes journalists’ lives really easy.
This may explain why Sydney house prices are growing at an annual rate of 7.4 percent if you believe SQM Research asking price growth index, or 4 percent if you trust the latest figures from Domain, or just 0.1 percent if you think CoreLogic is the bee’s knees in real estate data.
Melbourne house prices are growing at either 8 percent, 11.3 percent or 23.6 percent in annual terms, depending on your source of choice.
The Adelaide is rising, or falling; the Perth market is recovering, or not; and Canberra is up 5 percent or 18 percent – all dependent on which report you read most recently.
In my view, all real estate data is rubbery figures, to some degree.
And it’s adds an extra level of absurdity when economists, the least informed species about residential property on planet Earth, discuss Australian real estate as a single market. They all do it and media reports their misinformation daily – because if they have “economist” in their title they must be credible, right?
The reality is that we have a five-speed market in just the eight capital cities – and within those cities they are many different scenarios playing out.
We never have a situation in a major city where all parts of the market are rising (or falling) in unison.
Generally speaking, cycles start in a central point and ripple outwards gradually. The up-cycles in both Melbourne and Sydney began in the so-called prime suburbs and gravitated outwards over 3-4 years.
It’s a signal that the cycle has almost run its course when the areas with the most sales activity and price growth are in the outer-ring suburbs. We’re at that time right now with both our largest cities, with the Camden LGA one of the few remaining upwardly-mobile markets in Greater Sydney, and outlying areas like the Hume LGA and the Wyndham City LGA the strongest markets in Greater Melbourne.
What’s happening with our major markets makes a lot more sense when you chart them using sales volumes, rather than changes in price measures. 
The latter method is fraught with potential for aberrations, with the results dependent on methodology and other factors, as the figures presented earlier illustrate very clearly.
Sydney house prices are not growing at an annual rate of 4 percent, as Domain would have us believe. Some suburbs are growing more than that, others are at the point in the cycle where they’re not growing at all and some have values going a little backwards. A few areas, particularly those close to over-supplied apartment precincts, will have larger declines in values.
But none of that will be conveyed to real estate consumers – they’ll be given a single misleading figure encapsulating the whole city, only to be contradicted a few days later by a different number from another source.
But the sales activity figures (which we examine every quarter for The Price Predictor Index) seldom lie.
They’re revealing in all sorts of ways. For example, how about this question: when did the Melbourne market peak?
For in the swanky inner south-eastern suburbs such as Hawthorn (median price $2.1 million) and Canterbury ($2.9 million), it was early in 2014.
For middle market areas like Blackburn ($1.3 million) and Oakleigh ($1.2 million) it was the early part of 2015. And outer-ring precincts like Cranbourne ($480,000) and Carrum Downs ($500,000) hit their high points late in 2016 or early in 2017. Other outlying areas arrived at that point towards the end of last year.
It shows the many different market scenarios in play across the nation – and the degree to which economists and other commentators misinform consumers with their one-size-fits-all approach to real estate analysis.
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Property price growth cycles start in a central point and ripple outwards gradually: Hotspotting's Terry Ryder

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When investors are looking for good places to buy, consistency is a quality worth seeking. And the factor where consistency matters the most is in sales activity.
Some markets deliver steady levels of home sales, regardless of the booms or busts going on around them.
In each quarterly edition of The Price Predictor Index published by Hotspotting, we have spotlight the consistency markets – and we nominate a location as a nation’s most consistent market.
We have a strong focus on consistency markets because these are solid places for both home-buyers and investors.
The places we call the consistency markets sit in the middle of the spectrum, between the growth regions and the declining ones.
These are locations which record a consistent rate of sale, quarter after quarter, regardless of external events.  They represent safety for investors. 
And while they are often not boom markets, places with this high level of even performance usually produce solid price growth over time. 
They’re the housing market’s version of the “slow and steady wins the race” story.
In our new Summer edition of The Price Predictor Index, our award for the nation’s outstanding consistency market goes to Ulladulla in the Shoalhaven LGA in regional New South Wales.
It has sold between 43 and 58 homes in each of the past 13 quarters. Few locations in the country achieve that level of steadiness.
Ulladulla has a median house price of $510,000, after a 15 percent rise in the past 12 months.
To further illustrate the kind of growth that can happen in these steady performers, the winner in our Spring 2017 edition - Echuca in Victoria - had a 7 percent annual rise, while in the Winter 2017 edition our “most consistent market” - Sunbury  on the northern fringe of Melbourne - had a 10.4 percent annual increase. 
Generally in this report we look for locations where sales activity is rising, as these places are likely to deliver price growth. But the figures presented here for Ulladulla, Echuca and Sunbury show that steady market performers can achieve solid price growth as well.
As it’s not just short-term growth. Lalor Park in Sydney’s western suburbs, another noted consistency performer, has a long-term growth average (average annual growth in median house prices over 10 years) of 10 percent for year.
Greystanes in Sydney, which consistently sells 70-75 houses per quarter, averages 8.5 percent a year in median price growth.
Camp Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, has been averaging 7 percent per year.
Caroline Springs, a very steady sales market in western Melbourne, has averaged 7 percent per year. Frankston, which is both consistent and prolific in south-eastern Melbourne, has averaged 8 percent.
Some investors chase boom markets, seeking exponential short-term growth, and often end up with disappointing results.
There’s a lot to be said for the steady performers, which provide both safety and good long-term capital growth.
Very often, the tortoise out-performs the hare. 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/hotspotting" target="_blank">twitter.com/hotspotting</a>
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Lalor Park price growth highlights importance of consistency for investors

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Melbourne's inner-city unit market has been pinpointed in Terry Ryder's latest Hotspotting’s No Go Zones 2018 report.
Ryder warns investors to steer clear of apartments in the CBD, Southbank and Docklands in particular, citing concerns around oversupply and high rental vacancy rates.
Ryder said the impact of oversupply was frequently underestimated.
“Over-supply causes rents to fall and that drags down property values,’’ he warned.
It was the first time for several years that no regional, resource town in Queensland had been on the list.
Hotspotting founder Terry Ryder said in the report that the “single biggest danger” for investors this year was “buying apartments in some of our major cities”.
“Given that Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin already have, or are heading towards major surpluses of inner-city apartments, and Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast are trending in that direction, a good strategy for property investors is to simply avoid high-rise unit markets altogether,” he wrote.
Ryder warned while “the optimists” had suggested Melbourne’s population growth was strong enough to absorb its substantial unit development, many of the apartments being built were unlikely to appeal to local renters.
<div id="celtra_holder_news">“Many of the new high-rise projects have been specifically targeted at foreign investors. The size and layout of the properties don’t necessarily suit Australian residents,” he said.</div>
“This lessens the appeal of the apartments and reduces the size of the target market, thus causing downward pressure on rents and prices.”
The report advised that 4.2 per cent of properties available for rent in Southbank were vacant in November 2017, along with 3.4 per cent in Docklands and 2.8 per cent in the CBD.
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2018/1/24/southbank2.jpg" alt="">
While down from November 2016, they sat well above greater Melbourne’s November 2017 vacancy rate of 1.8 per cent, according to SQM Research.
Ryder’s report said State Government figures showed 20,000 residential properties across inner and middle Melbourne sat vacant.
Some 93,000 units were in the pipeline for construction across the city over the next two years — although it was unlikely they would all be built.
An <a href="https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-apartment-vic-southbank-126881530" target="_blank">18th level, two bedroom apartment</a> in Southbank's The Guilfoyle complex (top and above), sold has just sold for $475,000, having last traded for $530,000 in 2010. 
Ryder’s “no go” zones also included three Queensland markets — inner-city and northside Brisbane, and high-rise Gold Coast — along with the WA localities, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Perth inner-city, and Port Hedland and Karratha.
SA’s Whyalla and units in Parramatta, NSW, rounded out the 10. 
The No Go Zones report said the Olympic Park area, which includes Homebush, Breakfast Point and the suburb of Olympic Park itself, was becoming “prominent for all the wrong reasons”.
Sharp increases in the number of homes available have coincided with a decline in sales, while the number of rental properties currently vacant recently climbed to 4 per cent — double the Sydney average.
Other nearby suburbs such as Wentworth Point and Rhodes also “entered the danger zone”, according to the report.
Ryder urged investors to examine a market’s vacancy rates and building approvals to gauge potential oversupply before taking the purchase.
He also advised speaking to local “real estate professionals”, namely valuers and buyer’s agents.
In Hotspotting’s Top 5 Melbourne Hotspots 2018, Mr Ryder named the Hume, Wyndham, Melton, Epping and Casey precincts as the city’s best bets for buyers this year, each offering affordability, solid infrastructure and closeness to major employment networks.
 
 
<h2 class="property-description__medium-heading medium-heading" data-reactid="79"> </h2>
 
 
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jonathanchancellor-7SQnKwU6yx

Why inner city Melbourne tops Terry Ryder's 2018 No Go Zones report 

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Putting your faith in published data on prices is one of the great perils facing property investors around Australia. 
Anyone who bases a major investment decision on something they read about the pricing levels in a particular location and how much they are growing (or falling) may end up with a serious miscalculation.
It’s possible to access three sources for price information on a particular location and get three different results – one suggesting prices are rising, another claiming they’re stagnating and a third declaring that values are falling.
Here’s an example: a couple of days ago, I was writing a report and did a Google search on the median house price for Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
The search engine brought up results from multiple sources. 
Here are three of those outcomes:  
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1">According to Your Investment Property magazine, quoting CoreLogic data, the median house price was $299,950, up 5.7% in the past 12 months.</li>
<li class="li1">According to realestateinvestar.com.au, the median house price for Alice Springs was $469,000, unchanged from a year earlier; and </li>
<li class="li1">According to homesales.com.au, the median house price for Alice Springs was $1,109,913, down 1.7% on a year earlier. </li>
</ol>
So the median price was either $300,000 or $469,000 or $1.1 million, depending on which source you chose to believe. And prices in Alice Springs were either down a little, unchanged or up moderately, depending on your source. 
If this was an isolated example, there wouldn’t be a problem. But the experience of finding contradictory information on pricing is common. 
For the January edition of my monthly newsletter The Ryder Report, I compared price growth for apartments in the major cities, taking figures from three major sources.
Firstly, the figures demonstrate (yet again) that we don’t have a single property market in this country. We have many different markets, which currently are delivering contrasting results. And secondly, there are big differences in growth rates from one source to the next.
Hobart is the clear market leader: all three sources have the Tasmanian capital leading on annual growth in the median apartment price, but there are big variations in the claimed rate of growth, ranging from 9% to 18%.
Melbourne ranks second with two sources, but again there is quite a divergence in terms of the published annual growth rate in median prices. The ABS has apartment prices in Melbourne up 4% but CoreLogic has double the growth rate (a little over 8%) while SQM’s growth rate (13%) is three times higher than the ABS rate.
There is broad agreement that the Brisbane unit market is rather mediocre, but SQM record no change in prices, while ABS has prices down a little while CoreLogic has prices declining, but at three times the ABS rate of decrease.
It’s hard to know from these figures where the Canberra market is at: the three growth figures are 1.8%, 2.1% and 10%. Two sources suggest a quiet market while the third depict a strong rising market. 
Unit prices in Adelaide? CoreLogic suggests little change, SQM suggests a 2% annual rise and the ABS has prices up 6%. 
CoreLogic data suggests prices have stopped falling in Perth but both the ABS and SQM record an annual decline of about 6%. 
So, what do we make of that? My conclusion is: it’s all dodgy data, to a certain degree. 
All information about median prices and how much they’ve risen or fallen is rubbery figures to some extent, with the discrepancies and contradictions partly explained by different methodologies and varying definitions about various elements, such as how do you classify townhouses and where do the boundaries sit for a city like Melbourne.
But think about it. The Sydney metro area has over 700 suburbs and what’s happening in the Northern Beaches is somewhat different to the situation in Penrith, while Bondi has few similarities with Campbelltown. 
Yet a research company will try to distil all the sales activity in the past 12 months down to a single growth figure, declaring that Sydney prices are growing … well, the rate of growth depends very much on the source.
Media treats them as fact, despite these kinds of discrepancies, which are common. And bases sweeping interpretations on individual figures from a single source.
 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au
<a href="https://mailto:ryder@hotspotting.com.au">ryder@hotspotting.com.au</a>
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Investors struggle through the stats for price direction across Australia

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A nation like Australia should be able to have a sensible, rational, balanced debate on issues like housing affordability – but it seems we cannot because we have the media from hell. 
Mainstream media has been having a feeding frenzy recently over two documents about negative gearing and its impact on affordability – one a leaked report from Federal Treasury and the other a half-finished research paper by Melbourne University economists. 
Both apparently claim that scrapping negative gearing tax benefits would have only a minor impact on home values but at the same time would bring about a major improvement in housing affordability. 
There’s been lots of commentary on the significance of these documents, especially with regard to Federal Government policy, but I have not seen any media reports from writers who have challenged the documents. 
Their findings, apparently, are deemed to be factual and beyond scrutiny. 
The worst contribution to this endless and seemingly fruitless debate about affordability, its causes and its solutions, has come from the Melbourne University research paper. 
My first question about this is: why would the authors publish research that is not yet finished? It is, according to the authors, “preliminary and incomplete”. One of them says that when the research modelling is complete, the results may change, particularly the forecast size of the lift in home ownership. 
Given the sad record of this discussion being blighted by claims, counter-claims, pet theories and silver bullet solutions, why would academics who want to be taken seriously publish something that just adds to the quagmire of confusion because it’s still a work in progress. 
This paper makes some pretty big claims. Three-quarters of households would be better off, home ownership would surge and rents would rise but renters would be somehow better off. 
These are big statements. But they’re not justified or substantiated in any of the reports I’ve read. 
To try to understand why the authors think the suggested policy changes would have the big impacts they claim, I studied reports from six sources, including The Australian, the Financial Review, The Age and The Guardian. 
I’m still waiting for an explanation of the claimed outcomes. And I’m still waiting to come across a journalist who challenged the authors of the report on a number of matters, including their credentials, their motivations, their methodology and their assumptions. 
I’d love to see the mathematics that’s led them to their preliminary and incomplete conclusions. 
Here’s a core question they should be asked: how can you claim that the suggested policy would cause a 30% reduction in rental property supply, and therefore an increase in rents, but also claim that renters everywhere would be better off? 
From my study of media reports, it seems the authors are assuming that a 30% reduction in supply would cause a rental rise of only 2.4 percent – and that the Federal Government would financially compensate tenants for the higher rents that would result. 
Those are massive assumptions. No one in Australian media has challenged them. 
If they’re wrong and there’s no government compensation for higher rents, which would cost billions of dollars according to the report, tenants will be disadvantaged by having higher weekly occupancy costs, which would make it harder to save a deposit to get into home ownership. 
That whole argument falls apart if a future government offers no compensation. 
And keep in mind that other research tells us that last year, without any taxation policy changes to limit the supply of rental properties, house rents rose 7 percent in Canberra, 9 percent in Hobart and 5 percent in Melbourne. 
But, according to the Melbourne University boffins, eliminating one-third of the supply of rental properties would cause rents to change barely at all. 
It’s worth remembering that significantly higher rents resulted when a Labor Government scrapped negative gearing in the 1980s and then had to re-instate it a short time later because of the unforeseen adverse impacts. 
The university paper claims that property values would fall only 1.2 percent but somehow this insignificant decline in house prices would generate a massive rise in home ownership – from 66.7 percent to 72.2 percent. 
How have they come up with these very precise but unexplained estimates? 
They claim 30 percent of rental properties would be freed up and bought by Australians who would otherwise have rented. So we’re asked to accept that a 1.2% drop in prices would turn those who can’t afford to buy into people who now can do so. 
That’s another massive assumption that no one has challenged. 
Think about it. The Asking Price Index for Sydney houses sits at $1,356,500, according to SQM Research. A 1.2 percent reduction in prices would bring that down to $1,340,222. Apparently $1.356 million is unaffordable but $1.34 million is affordable to heaps of people. 
But those are Sydney prices. Let’s look at a city that’s a little less extreme, like Brisbane. The Asking Price Index for the Queensland capital sits around $614,000 and a 1.2 percent reduction would bring it down to about $607,000. 
The report authors want us to believe that this small change will cause a “surge” in home ownership rates in Brisbane. 
In a parallel universe, maybe, but not in the real world. 
There are other aspects of this paper that ought to be challenged – and would be if journalism played a part in the reporting of the housing industry. 
The claim that only the “rich” benefit from negative gearing is outrageous - and patently false, according to ATO data. 
There’s no explanation in any report I’ve read for the claim that 76 percent of households would be better off under the suggested policy change. We’re told only that the authors used “an economic model”. 
Surely Australia as a nation can do better than this. But while we’re saddled with such mediocre media and clueless politicians, we’re doomed to having this festering issue drone on for years to come. 
Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au ryder@hotspotting.com.au 
twitter.com/hotspotting
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Terry Ryder

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