After arriving in Melbourne last Sunday Night I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Melbourne. It is not the first time I have been in the city and certainly won’t be the last… as a Sydneysider it is always difficult to make comments about Melbourne being better than Sydney in anything, but I can say Melbourne is a fantastic city that has a vibe like no other in Australia. The city itself is amazing with the most fascinating buildings from grand old heritage churches and museums to funky designed modern office and residential buildings. It really does have a life of its own.

Our first day in Melbourne, we met with developers that crossed the inner city regions. We first went to Collingwood to meet with Caydon, across to busy Richmond to meet with Cubo and then over to Port Melbourne where we met with Salta. The evening was spent in Brunswick. Each one of these places is so different and offers a fantastic lifestyle to anyone that lives or visits the areas.

Collingwood is one of Melbourne’s oldest suburbs with many old heritage buildings. Richmond is going through a period of gentrification with a mix of the ultra modern and tired old buildings that are waiting for a little attention. The three main streets in Richmond that are going through the current gentrification include Victoria, Swan and Bridge Streets. Port Melbourne is a suburb largely dominated by industrial sites at present along the shores through to open parklands, bayside beaches, exclusive apartments and Bay Street’s restaurants and cafes.

Tuesday we explored other suburbs including Prahran, St Kilda and the City. Through the day we met Hamton, Bensons Property Group, Brady Property Group and FKP. A lot of new apartment developments are occurring in these suburbs. Each of these suburbs is all well established.

Wednesday was another day on the road meeting with developments. We met with PDG in the City, Deal Corporation in Toorak, Birner Property Group in Armadale and Ninety Four Feet in North Caulfield. We spent the afternoon exploring some of the suburbs in eastern Melbourne out to Oakleigh.

The suburb Toorak is the glitz and glamour of Melbourne. Definitely the most upmarket strip shops I have visited during the week and very clean. Looking in the window of the local real estate agent, prices are high. Toorak is not only viewed as one of the best (thus also most expensive) suburbs in Melbourne, but also in Australia.

Thursday we met with FDG (Salvo Property Group), Extension Marketing, Fridcorp in South Yarra, Hickory in Richmond and Map Concepts just north of the city in Fitzroy.

Overall the visit was a huge success. Getting feedback from the developers has been positive and we look forward to bring you more new projects from these developers plus many more that we are currently talking to.

It is easy to see why Melbourne has been such a popular market for property investors over the last few years…. it is a great place to live!

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The NSW Government has surprised the market with a NSW stamp duty cut for  property investors and home buyers. The NSW Government has announced in the budget today that home buyers (not first home buyers) and investors will be entitled to a 50% discount on NSW Stamp Duty costs for new property purchasers under $600,000. It is interesting to note that about 80% of NSW properties for sale are sold under $600,000. First Home Buyers don’t pay stamp duty for homes under $500,000 and there is a sliding scale up to $600,000 where the full rate is applicable.

The discount provided by the Reese Government is only available to 31st December 2009 and only for brand new homes including new apartments, new townhouses & new house and land packages. It is also available for those properties that have never been occupied or sold previously as well as for off the plan NSW purchases – the short time frame hoping to encourage home buyers and investors to move into the property market before the end of the year.

According to the NSW Treasury, 90% of First Home Buyers have been buying established property, so the additional boost is to help developers with the new stock that is currently being marketed.

First home buyers will now also receive an extra $3,000 for the purchase of newly-constructed homes until June 30 in 2010. First Home Buyers can now receive a total of $41,990 in grants and stamp duty cuts!

The downside I see to this stimulus is that it ends at the same time as the boosted First Home Buyers Grant, at the end of December 2009. What this means is that the market may become over stimulated during the next 6 months and take a hard fall when both stimulus packages are removed at the same time. It would have been smarter for the NSW Government to have an overlap of at least 6 months allowing the stimulus to carry us through to mid next year and encouraging further development which is so desperately needed in NSW.

It will be interesting to see how the cut to the NSW stamp duty plays out in the media and the markets over the next 6 months.

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New homes take the lead from new apartments when it comes to pushing the properrty market up. First home buyers have helped with an increase in detached new home sales by 1.1% in April according to the HIA. The number of detached new home sales was 3% higher than that of April 2008. Harley Dale, chief economist at HIA has suggested that the leading indicators point to housing as emerging bright spot int he economy.

HIA has forcast that 6,900 extra starts of new homes will occur in the second half of 2009.

Other figures released by the HIA suggested property investors were still a little hesitiant coming back into the market with new apartment and unit sales falling by 5.6% in April.

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Colliers International has released their Brisbane March quarter apartment report identifying 6 major projects that have been put on hold due to the current economic climate. Major developments which they identified included the $1billion Vision Tower, $700million Trilogy Tower, $500million Empire Square residential and hotel development, $1.1billion Eagle street Pier Project by Stockland on the Brisbane River.

One developer surging ahaead with their development is Devine Properties who is developing the $1billion French Quarter. They hope to achieve sales success similiar to their past project Hamilton Harbour.

Other developers looking to move forward to their developments include Meriton and North Build Construction.

Other projects that have not progressed include Hogan Place, Silverpoint Towers and Q-Centre tower.

This report focuses on Queensland where many of Australia’s high profile development were to take place. The same reults of shelved developments around Australia can been seen in all the major cities.

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It has come to our attention that the new apartment development located at Sydney Olympic Park will be made available to the public very shortly. This landmark project is one of the most exciting and unique projects in Sydney and is the first in the Sydney Olympic Park precinct.

Sydney Olympic Park is going to become a master planned community that will fully be completed by 2030. Since 2000, more than $1.1billion of new developments has been secured at Olympic Park, while over the past 2 years over $276 million worth of projects has been approved. There are 6,000 new dwellings being planned to accomodate 14,000 residents along with a new private hospital which is due for comepltion in 2010. A 90-place child care facility has also been approved for development, along with a 100,000sqm education campus which has been planned for the park. There are also a number of corporations that are relcoating to the Sydney Olympic Park bringing 28,500 jobs.

We will release more details about this amazing landmark development of new apartments in Sydney Olympic Park once we have approval from the developer.

You will be able to find these new apartments on the Find Investment Property portal.

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Our website Find Investment Property is finally up and running after 12 months of research, design and development. It is amazing to see it come alive after working with it for so long. We are really happy with the final result and the inititial response from developers and browsers has been fantastic. We are slowly building our content on the site and we are tweaking the site to ensure a smooth operation for our users. Look out for the Knoweldge Centre that will be added shortly along with more calculators.

The site has been live since late January 09. We went live with only 3 projects and currently we have over 65 and this is increasing every week. Our aim is to have every new apartment, townhouse and land estate listed over the next 12 months. With your help we can do this. Feel free to suggest developments for us to add. You can do that in the comments section.

 Below is our first media release for our launch:

www.findinvestmentproperty.com.au  is Australia’s first property portal dedicated to providing both investors and home-buyers with the best new-build and off-the-plan property deals available across the country, as well as enough comprehensive research and market data to make an on the spot decision to buy.

The progressive property portal is a one-stop-shop and all round information hub, where developers from across the country can list their unbeatable real estate opportunities in a clear and consistent format, allowing for easy comparison of units.

The website supersedes all others of its kind by employing a range of brand new features and capabilities, allowing easy access to a wealth of information which savvy investors must take into account before sealing the deal. This includes details of developers and agents, statistics on sales and rental markets, as well as listings of local amenities such as schools and details of transport links, giving investors the ability to make well informed decisions.

In addition to the information on each property and its locality, the website will also contain a dedicated ‘Knowledge Centre’ from April 2009. Updated regularly, this unique tool will provide members with relevant news articles and market commentary from industry experts, allowing readers to keep their fingers on the pulse of the national real estate market and take action accordingly on individual investments.  
 
The Find creators set themselves the task of delivering the portal to the market place after identifying the need for investors and home-buyers to be fully educated about the property and the location they are buying in.

Mark Mendel, the founder of Find said, “We have had an overwhelming amount of feedback from investors and home-buyers which would indicate there is a real demand for this type of website. It has become increasingly important that prospective purchasers carry out thorough due diligence before purchasing, given the current economic climate. But despite the negativity surrounding financial markets, with more interest rate cuts forecast and the recent tripling of first-home-buyers grants many experts are advising it’s a great time to buy property. It’s just a question of ensuring purchasers have enough information to decide on the best deal.”

Investors and owner-occupiers alike are increasingly utilising the internet’s resources to purchasing property off-the-plan, but Find will create a property data hub where they will not only find information on what’s for sale, but also be able to read articles by industry experts about ancillary aspects within the buying process. The site is designed to ensure that investors have all the relevant information they need to make a decision at their finger tips.

Mr Mendel continued, “One of the real benefits to investors purchasing interstate or from overseas, is that it will negate the necessity of a site visit because everything one needs to know about the locality will be readily available.”

Please continue to visit both our website and our blog and feel free to provide comments on anything we may have blogged about.

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