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Posts Tagged ‘queensland’

Queensland Building Boost

Posted by Mark Mendel in Brisbane Property News on 06 15th, 2011

The Government is introducing changes to transfer duty to stimulate the new house market and building industry.

Assisting Home Owners

The Government has a record of introducing measures to make housing affordable to increase supply to make how ownership possible. These measures have included abolishing mortgage duty and stamp duty for all first home buyers purchasing a home under $500,000. Following the global financial crises, it has been a tough period for the housing market. The housing sector is also a significant generator of jobs and Queensland needs more houses being built for the future.

Queensland Building Boost

To help assist housing affordability, supply and construction job, the Government is delivering a $140million stimulus for the housing industry.

For six months from 1 August this year (2011) any Queensland buying a newly constructed home or signing a contract to build a new how will get a $10,000 grant from the state government for properties valued up to $600,000.

For First Home Buyers this will mean they will pay zero stamp duty for properties under $500,000, zero mortgage duty and receive a full $17,000 with the $10,000 boost.

The grant will be available to people building a house, buying a house and land package or buying apartments or townhouses off the plan.

To be eligible for the grant, the contract must be made between the 1 August 2011 and 31st January 2012. For contracts to build residence, building must start within 26 weeks of the contract being signed with the contract specifying a completion date within 18 months.

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Interstate Migration to Queensland

Posted by Mark Mendel in Brisbane Property News on 05 3rd, 2011

What happened? Where did all the people go?

Queensland (and the other states) today is still feeling the aftershock from the GFC. The drop in interstate migration has really hurt the property market in Queensland. In the year to June 2005, Queensland had 94,000 new residents of which about 30,000 where from interstate. Today Queensland adds the same number of residents however only 9,000 are from interstate and the rest are from overseas. Why does this matter? Well an interstate visitor is likely to buy a home when they move to Queensland while an overseas visitor is likely to rent. So this puts significant more impact on the rental accommodation putting rental values up but hinders the growth of the property value in the short term.

So why is there less of a market for interstate migration to Queensland today than there was a few years ago? The major influencing factor was the GFC. Today, in the Post GFC environment, it is risky to sell your house, buy another and find a new job. Those that thought about moving are staying put. It is the safer option for now.

Three to five years ago there was also a much larger gap in property prices between the major cities. This meant that those thinking about migrating to the sunshine state were encouraged as their dollar went further in the Queensland housing market. This isn’t the case anymore with Queensland property prices (Brisbane in particular) catching up with the other major cities. There has also been a lot of negative sentiment in the media about home prices falling in Queensland, especially in secondary markets such as the Gold Coast and Cairns where Baby Boomers are not buying anymore. In many cases property values have halved leaving owners in a desperate position to sell and walk away with losses amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases.

Having said all this, I can see that a turnaround in Queensland property will occur first with the major centres such as Brisbane and Ipswich while secondary markets such as the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Cairns may still remain in limbo for a few years to come.

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Queensland Property Stamp Duty

Posted by Mark Mendel in Brisbane Property News on 03 22nd, 2011

Every time we buy a property in Queensland the dreaded Stamp Duty tax is a real killer for many home buyers and investors. It doesn’t matter whether you are buying a new home or apartment, a duplex or just a piece of land, the Queensland State Government will slug you extra upon your purchase. Since 2006, the Queensland Government has collected over $12billion in stamp duty, and now there is talk of it being axed to save homebuyers tens of thousands of dollars.

When homebuyers are looking to purchase a property at around $550,000 the stamp duty payable is close to $20,000 while when purchasing a property at $900,000 the stamp duty is more than $33,000.

This isn’t something that will be fixed over night but Mr Fraser is hoping to lift the burden from Homebuyers within the next 5 years.

So if the Queensland State Government were to remove the stamp duty for property buyers, would this make property in QLD more affordable or would prices simply rise as homebuyers would have calculated this expense into their purchase already.

Warick Temby, executive director of the Queensland’s Housing Association has suggested that scrapping the stamp duty would make home ownership more affordable and allow some people to more freely between homes. Mr Temby stated that many people don’t downgrade homes as they don’t wish to be hit by the extra expense of paying stamp duty.

Ian Murry, acting Chief executive of the REIQ said “stamp duty was a disincentive for investors and scrapping the tax would help bring more rental properties on the market.”

I for one am for the scrapping of the stamp duty, however do I believe the cost will make homes more affordable, probably not. The likelihood is that homebuyers will simply use this extra saving as a way to push prices up on their emotion purchase of their new family home.

For property investors it does become a positive more as it reduces the cost base of their purchase and allows for a higher total yield on the overall purchase price of their property investment.

Do you think the QLD will remove the stamp duty tax on the transfer of property or is this just another way for the politicians to get your vote? Throwing away $3billion dollars a year in property tax simply means they are going to have to slug the people of Queensland with another tax to make up the difference.

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Brisbane Property Outlook

Posted by Mark Mendel in Brisbane Property News on 11 23rd, 2010

Where is the Brisbane property market heading in 2011? It is a question that many seem to be asking as the Brisbane market through 2010 continued to underperform. The Brisbane property market is doing it very tough at the moment with many interested in the market but not many making a commitment to purchase. Interest on new projects has been strong in the inner city regions and rightfully so as the market will start to dominate towards the end of next year however in the mean time everyone seems to be sitting on their hands.

The interstate interest in the Brisbane property outlook  is strong and says allot about the future outlook, but until the locals start buying, the market will continue to move sideways.

The Brisbane property outlook still has all the right fundamentals to make it an attractive location to invest in. There is continually strong population growth, as well as a state economy that continues to outperform many of the other states. There has been large amounts of infrastructure spend and more to come over the following years all throughout Brisbane and Queensland and population growth is above the national average. As the mining boom continues, Brisbane and the whole of Queensland are well placed to take advantage of overseas investment. They are also well located within Australia to become a major trading hub for the Asian markets.

Average capital growth over the last 10 years has been well above 10% however in recent times growth has been slow with only 0.4% capital growth in the latest quarter and 2.1% over the last 12 months. This is the third slowest capital growth over the last year only ahead of Hobart and Perth. Although Perth and Hobart capital growth stats are unlikely to change any time soon, we are predicting large movement in Brisbane property prices over the next 12 – 36 months. Those thinking about investing in Brisbane property market, whether it is a Brisbane off the plan apartment or a Queensland house and land package in a major regional growth centre, property investors should be buying in 2011 and not waiting for the mad rush in 2012 when prices have already started to increase.

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