Give It Back To The Community

Councillor Helen Abrahams calls for a Community Centre at 1 Orleigh Street, West End.

 

In a statement issued recently, Cr Abrahams said:

Several members of the local community approached me with this idea, and so as I have made mention to other local residents that Council has purchased this house, the response has been unanimous, that Council should keep the building and provide it for a community use.

The existing house is a wonderful character house with enclosed verandas. These buildings are easy to convert into a community facilities building and possibly a child care centre.

The suggestions for a community building include:

·        a meeting space for young mothers

·        a hub for groups of people who wish to come together to create products for sale such as a small social enterprise

·        a Sustainability Centre demonstrating and supporting climate change initiatives

·        an Indigenous History Centre

Several of these activities could be accommodated in this building. Other suggestions include low cost housing, or selling the house to a housing co-operative.

Presently there are 112 community services in the West End Peninsula (Sept 2010).  However, the proposed population increases for the West End peninsula will see the need for additional community facilities.

54% of these current services are meeting the needs of the local community and the remaining 62% of services are considered under threat from development pressures. Churches and child care centres were identified as secure from the gentrification pressures. The 23 boarding houses were considered the most vulnerable.

With a tripling in population there must also be a link with the reciprocal tripling of community services. The purchase of this site provides the Lord Mayor the opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the existing community and to provide community infrastructure.

Urban renewal is more than building skyscrapers. It is to ensure community facilites are also provided so that people will want to come and live in these areas.

At the moment, the Lord Mayor is simply building skyscrapers and generating congestion.

The Orleigh Street site is being purchased in order to construct a roundabout for the CityGlider bus service at the West End Ferry terminal. A small portion of the site is necessary for the roundabout.  This will leave the dwelling and a sizeable area untouched.  The house could easily remain on site although it may need to be shifted back on the block.

Source: www.westender.com.au

Research shows property still the best investment

Australia was one of the countries that came out of the GFC on top. Research now indicates that the housing market looks like it is going to take off again. Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) and BankWest recently conducted surveys finding that almost three in four  (73%) of respondents expect house prices to rise, which is the highest level of confidence in more than three years. 

Below is an excerpt from RP Data with relation to the research carried out.

“Phil Naylor, CEO of The MFAA said confidence in the housing market is not only pre-GFC – it’s back where it was during the height of the housing boom.

However, he warned that the recent interest rate increases are negatively impacting households.

The proportion of respondents who are struggling to meet their mortgage repayments have increased to 15.9% from 11.7% in May 2009.

About half of the respondents believe now is a good time to buy a new home, with almost two-thirds (63%) of South Australians saying now is a good time to buy. Queensland was the least optimistic at just 41.4% of respondents believing it was a good time to buy.”

First National Metro sales team is confident that this increase is a realistic expectation and sales results over the last three months are showing the trend towards this outcome.

Do you think the GFC is over for Australia? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Does Australia Face a Property Bubble

For some time, elements of the media have suggested Australian housing values are over-inflated and face the risk of a speculative housing bubble bursting. This theme arises in some European and US based reports, where an incomplete understanding of the Australian property market’s unique dynamics is evident. Australian media is not devoid of such reports, although they are far less prevalent.

Of course, there are reasons for concern. Many of the market’s indicators do underline the fact that things are getting hotter. Housing prices have been rising strongly this year, on the back of modest gains even last year.

Information supplied by First National Real Estate, Your Industry, No. 133 – 15.03.10

Auction clearance rates started strongly in 2010 and pre-auction sales are well up. The number of properties being sold has risen. Rents continue to rise, although slightly slower than expected, and vacancy rates are at their lowest point in the past twenty years.

Balancing the rapidly heating market though is a sharp drop in home loan approvals. To an extent, this is an expected result of the removal of the First Home Owners Grant Boost. With many having rushed to beat the phase out in December, there’s a natural adjustment occurring. However, this is also partly attributable to tightened credit conditions.

The set of fundamentals driving the Australian property market differ, though, from most international markets right now. Firstly, Australians are chiefly coastal dwellers. This is in total contrast to the European and United States property markets. We have a limited number of population centers and these attract the vast majority of our population, as a result of employment and lifestyle conditions.

Our political structure of Federal and State governance leads to another unique factor. The Federal Government has determined a policy whereby levels of immigration are set at their highest since WWII, generating significant demand for housing. This collides with an environment of undersupply and a demonstrated State Government incapability to plan for appropriate land release and building approval processes.

Australia’s banks are more heavily regulated than those of other countries and the concept of ‘non-recourse’ lending that, in part, led to the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States, is simply not a feature of our marketplace.

The economy has performed strongly and continues to do so as employment posts some of the strongest gains on record in recent times.

Banks, however, remain reluctant to resume lending for apartment developments and this is another factor constraining supply. As predicted in First National Real Estate’s Property Outlook 2010, investors have noticed the opportunity for capital gain in such an environment and this is where the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) observes some risk of speculation creating a bubble.

Research shows that basic variable interest rate movements of the past ten years have averaged 6.6 per cent. The last few RBA board meetings have all discussed the need for interest rates to return to ‘normal levels’ if the economy still shows signs of expansion. According to finance brokers Smartline, Australia is now only 0.60 per cent from the medium term average, as the chart above shows. RBA boss Glenn Stevens’ estimate is that it will take one or two 0.25 per cent increases in official interest rates to return to ‘normal’.

New home sales made an encouraging start to 2010, with sales of newly constructed homes jumping 10.1 per cent in January. Sales of new apartments also rose, but only by 4.1 per cent, following a 14.5 per cent rise in December 2009. However, while sales were up in January, building approvals fell 7 per cent so supply remains the never-ending challenge critical to avoiding a bubble.

One simple factor is clear. If State and Federal Governments cannot coordinate, at all levels, to solve land supply constraints, high levels of taxation on new housing, and, structural barriers, the strangulation of dwelling supply will leave the RBA with one option only to minimise the chance of a bubble bursting – suppressing demand by lifting rates further still.

This information supplied by First National Real Estate, Your Industry, No. 133 – 15.03.10