World-class price tags on Wolseley Road
Wolseley Road, Point Piper, ranks as the world’s 10th priciest residential street, says the latest Dow Jones Financial News index.
Europe property prices are in turmoil, and the priciest street was in Hong Kong. Australia’s representative held its ground, and might edge higher after the recent $52 million sale of Villa Veneto.
The price reflects about $38,000 a square metre, higher than the $US28,000 ($30,000) a square metre given in the index for Wolseley Road.
Australia’s robust economy and the strength of the local currency helped Point Piper hold its spot on the list, according to Dow Jones.
Severn Road on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong ranks as the most expensive residential street in the world, according to the third annual survey.
It costs $US70,000 for one square metre of real estate. Severn Road jumped from eighth place to overtake last year’s No. 1, Avenue Princesse Grace in Monte Carlo.
About 15 per cent was wiped off the value of the world’s 10 most expensive streets in the past year. The worst fall was on Avenue Princesse Grace, from $US120,000 a square metre to $US65,000.
The next biggest decline was Chemin de Saint-Hospice in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the south of France, where values tumbled from $US100,000 a square metre to $US55,000. The only places where prices rose were Severn Road and Moscow’s Ostozhenka.
Kensington Palace Gardens in London and Fifth Avenue, New York, ranked equal second at about $US65,000 a square metre, according to the list compiled by agents Knight Frank, Savills and Chesterton Humberts along with local independents.
It appears it took a Double Bay dentist, David Penn, and his wife, Linda Mueller, to consolidate Point Piper’s spot in the prestige stakes.
After their bullish $52 million purchase last month they will have the Lowys, of Westfield fame, as their neighbours.
Villa Veneto, the home of Andrew and Andrea Banks, had been on and off the market for three years. The Penns made their initial inspection two years ago.
Mr Penn heads clinical and technical research at Southern Cross Dental Labatories, which he founded in 1983. The Penns sold their Michael Suttor-designed home at Bellevue Hill for about $23 million to Tom and Lilly Haikin, owners of the Australian franchise of the Max Brenner chocolate shop, which recorded sales last year exceeding $20 million.
Mr Haikin, a former dental technician, has a $2 million house in Maroubra.
The listing agent of both properties, Bill Malouf of LJ Hooker Double Bay, will not confirm any sale details. But the reputed $52 million price trumps the $45 million – $11,250 a square metre – paid in 2008 by the expatriate foreign exchange dealer Ivan Ritossa for the Vaucluse residence, Coolong, currently rented to Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch.
After the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, which sent sharemarkets into a panic, the highest Sydney sale has been $26.75 million in Vaucluse, at $16,700 a square metre.
In Perth, a 7500 square metre residential compound with three houses on the Swan River at Mosman Park fetched a record $57.5 million in 2009. But it is hardly comparable, at $7666 a square metre and three houses.
The next Wolseley Road test will be the sale of property developer Nati Stoliar’s non-waterfront penthouse through Mr Malouf. It comprises 322 square metres on one floor, and a 280 square metre roof-level terrace with jacuzzi and barbecue.
Mr Stoliar, who once called as home both the record-setting Boomerang in Elizabeth Bay and Villa del Mare in Point Piper, is seeking more than $9 million.
It is in Pacific Point, in which was set a Sydney record off-the-plan apartment price of $3.8 million in 1988. But the apartment was sold again for $2.51 million in 1993, which indicates that prices do not only ever rise on the street paved in gold. Phil Green, of Babcock & Brown, then made money on it by selling it for $3.66 million in 2000.
The ground floor apartment in Pacific Point – which has 277 square metres of internal space, plus terraces – remains unsold after being scheduled for June auction with $5 million hopes through the McGrath agent Alan Waitsman.
It was listed by the Schwartz family executor after the death in 2000 of the long-time BRW Rich List dentist Bela Schwartz, who started investing in property after immigrating from Hungary in 1940, and his widow, Eve, who died in 2005.
The highest sale price at the weekend was $2.54 million for a terrace in Darlinghurst. Two pricier listings, at Balmain and Wollstonecraft, failed to find buyers.
The overall clearance rate from 243 listings was 57 per cent, 10 per cent weaker than the 67 per cent August average, according to Australian Property Monitors.
Source
Jonathan Chancellor
Sydney Morning Herald
September 6, 2010
Sales survive election woes
THE August residential auction market finished on a strong showing with a 68 per cent weekend success rate, despite the uncertainty of the election.
An overall 66 per cent clearance rate this month, with only a handful of auctions to go, will rank as the best monthly result since April.
It was also a weekend of inner-west records. The dearest sale on Appian Way at Burwood was a six-bedroom house fetching a record $4,175,000. It bettered $4.05 million on the same street in 2008.
It had been renovated since traded in 1999 at $1.2 million.
Another record was set in Newtown when Yarraville, a renovated Georgian residence on 583 square metres, fetched $3.2 million. It had also undergone considerable extensions since traded in 1991 for $254,000.
Agents sold 215 of the 292 reported weekend results, according to Australian Property Monitors. It was a marked increase in volume on last weekend when the election limited activity to 165 auctions.
But the traditional spring selling season appears set for a slower start with 1600 September auctions scheduled so far by Sydney estate agents. There were a record 2400 last September.
But any political instability could play havoc with the market, according to a poll on the Herald’s website. It found 43 per cent of the 1672 votes thought extended political wrangling would put off buyers and send prices lower.
Source : Jonathan Chancellor, Sydney Morning Herald. 30 August 2010
Spring property market seen delayed by political stalemate
The drawn-out political wrangle to form the next federal government looks set to affect the nation’s real estate market, delaying the start of the key spring auction season and adding further pressure on house prices.
Election officials say the country may have to wait until at least the end of next week before the final make-up of parliament is known and a new government installed. The hold up, and related uncertainty about the broader economy, will alter the timing of some auctions, with a possible flow-on impact for prices.
”The hung parliament will no doubt postpone the start of the season but we are predicting good stock levels throughout the coming months after a delay by vendors to list due to the election,” said Real Estate Buyers Association of Australia president Byron Rose.
”The market may still be soft with demand light on so vendors may need to readjust expectations amid a high level of market uncertainty amongst home buyers,” said Mr Rose.
Australia’s real estate sector was one of the most resilient during the economic slowdown, as a rise in immigration and government subsidies to first home buyers helping to shore up demand. Big house price gains have since moderated as the Reserve Bank’s six interest rate rises have raised the cost of variable mortgages, slowing price growth to 3.1 per cent in the three months to June, down from 4.2 per cent rise in the March quarter.
Clearance rates in the major cities have already begun to fall, with Melbourne’s level now just below 70 per cent from more than 80 per cent earlier in the year. Sydney’s auction clearances are now about 63 per cent, down from more than 70 per cent earlier in the year.
Other headwinds for the industry include falling home monthly loan volumes, lower new home sales, and drops in building approvals, which are starting to show up in house price moderation.
The median national home price fell by 0.8 per cent in June, from a 0.6 per cent increase in May, according to RP Data-Rismark figures. June’s drop marked the first decline in prices in a year and a half. Despite June’s retreat, the median national dwelling price still stood at $465,000 in what is considered one of the least affordable housing markets in the world.
Spring ahead
Spring is a key season for the real estate industry, with listings typically rising as much as 20 per cent from winter levels, said real estate agents.
JPP Buyer advocate Catherine Cashmore predicts an excess of stock as vendors are typically less flexible than buyers. Those selling houses usually spend weeks putting their property on the market, while demand can fluctuate more quickly to changing circumstances, such as political events and sudden interest rate movements.
”That means properties will be on the market longer than you’d expect at a spring market,” Ms Cashmore said. She says prices could dip slightly as buyers slowly return to the market. ”I don’t mean they’d go down – they would sell at the lower end of what they were asking.”
One measure of the $1 million-plus home sales auction interest, complied by buyer’s advocate Mal James, shows the average number of bidders at four Melbourne council areas moving from 2.2 bidders per auction in the week of July 17 – just prior to the election being called – to as low as 1.2 bidders on August 14. On the election weekend, they were an average of 1.5 bidders.
Mr James said this weekend’s buyers and sellers were likely already committed, with the expectation made weeks ago of a completed election. The real impact on the market, if any, will come in the following weeks.
”If the hung parliament’s affects people’s psyche then that will be proven (by stock levels) in October,” he said.
Irrational response
Peter O’Malley of Sydney-based Harris Partners Real Estate Agents said there’s no logical reason for buyers’ faltering interest during the period of political uncertainty because the campaign and its aftermath probably won’t change tax regulation or real estate market conditions.
”It’s an irrational reaction but definitely the way the market reacts,” Mr O’Malley said.
The result of the political disruption is that there will be slightly more supply compared with demand in the market once the spring selling season gets under way.
”People anticipated the election campaign would be out of the way by now,” Mr O’Malley said. ”The end of the election campaign will coincide with increasing spring stock,” he said.
Source czappone@fairfax.com.au 25 August 2010
Slowing inflation may stay RBA hand for interest rates until 2011
THE Reserve Bank is expected to keep interest rates on hold for at least a few months after much better than expected inflation data.
A slowing in the pace of underlying inflation sent the Australian dollar tumbling as investors scaled back the chance of a rate increase as early as next Tuesday.
Analysts said the key June-quarter report on consumer prices had put to rest speculation the RBA would lift official rates at its Tuesday board meeting.
While there was less than a one-in-three chance the RBA would lift rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.75 per cent, investors had worried about a pick-up in core inflation after second-quarter export prices had a record rise.
But the pace of core annual inflation, which strips out volatile consumer price moves, slowed to within the RBA’s 2-3 per cent target range for the first time in three years.
Macquarie interest rate strategist Rory Robertson said the softer inflation outlook meant the RBA would hold off raising rates from the current 4.5 per cent.
“The RBA will remain on hold for at least the next three months and probably into 2011,” Mr Robertson said in a research note after the data was released.
“If you were thinking the RBA might make this federal election campaign interesting, think again.”
Westpac chief economist Bill Evans agreed the RBA would keep its powder dry at the August 3 board meeting and “most likely for the remainder of 2010”.
“Now, with rates on hold for the foreseeable future, consumer confidence, business confidence, housing and most likely the labour market will be boosted,” Mr Evans said in a note.
“Interest rates are still only at neutral levels, so given this scenario, it is now much more likely that the tightening cycle will resume sometime in 2011.
“By then, the Chinese economy will have restored its upward momentum, labour markets will be uncomfortably tight, and housing is likely to be staging a resurgence.
“Even economies like the US and Europe will have had another six to 12 months to work through their chronic imbalances.”
The RBA has raised rates six times since October in an effort to stabilise an economy benefiting from the fast-growing emerging Asian nations, particularly China.
The pace of core, or underlying inflation, slowed to 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, compared with 0.8 per cent in the previous three-month period, data showed.
“This number comes as an extraordinary surprise,” Mr Evans said.
The headline Consumer Price Index rose 0.6 per cent on-quarter and 3.1 per cent over the year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said today. The pace of CPI was slower than market forecasts of 1 per cent on-quarter and 3.4 per cent over the year.
The main drivers of the “downside shock” in the inflation report, Mr Evans said, were price falls in the recreation category as well as financial and insurance services.
Royal Bank of Scotland chief economist Kieran Davies said: “The major economies around the world are also forecast to remain steady (on official interest rates).
“The Reserve Bank can extend its pause until later this year and make its judgment with more information about both the world economy and the labour market.
“This means that rates stay higher than the rest of the world for longer, but wider cash-rate differentials are more an issue for later.”
Goldman Sachs economist David Colosimo said the investment bank still forecast a 25bp tightening of monetary policy in November this year, ahead of 75bp in 2011.
“This outcome strengthens our view that the RBA will leave rates unchanged at that time, given that the global backdrop remains uncertain and the previously booming Australian housing market appears to be cooling,” he said.
“From a medium-term perspective, however, we believe inflation pressures remain.”
Source : Scott Murdoch. The Australian Newspaper – 28 July 2010
Award for Excellence – NSW REI (Buyers Agent Category)
Henry Wilkinson of Homesearch Solutions has been judged as a finalist for the 2010 NSW Real Estate Institute Awards for Excellence, in the Buyers Agent Category. The winner will be announced in October 2010.
Brighter day for market as auction sales rise
A SUNNY winter’s day brought out home buyers at the weekend, and auction-clearance rates were higher than the previous week.
Although the clearance rates remain lower than at the same time last year, when the government economic stimulus packages were operating, agents say the trend is rising.
Australian Property Monitors said the clearance rate in Sydney was 61 per cent, compared with 49 per cent the previous weekend. A total of 205 homes were up for auction; 147 sold and 31 were withdrawn.
The highest price paid was $2.09 million, for a three-bedroom home in Bronte. A 10 bedroom home in Austral sold for $1.5 million.
In Balmain three homes sold for between $570,000 and $900,000, and $855,000 was paid for a three-bedroom home in Nelson Street, Annandale.
The head of research at APM, Yvonne Chan, said the weekend’s improved rate was a reflection that investors were feeling more comfortable.
A year ago the government stimulus packages and lower interest rates had increased clearance rates, Ms Chan said. But the weekend’s rate of 61 per cent was encouraging and a big improvement on the previous week’s 49 per cent, the lowest since December 2008, she said.
While she did not expect figures similar to those a year ago, there were signs that auction rates were rising.
”People still need a place to live and are more confident that the economy is improving and their jobs are safe”
Source : Sydney Morning Herald – CAROLYN CUMMINS
July 19, 2010
NSW Budget stamp duty changes
THE housing and construction industries are to receive a significant boost from the budget. One of the measures taken by the government to increase housing supply is cutting to zero stamp duty for those buying dwellings off the plan.
Additionally, those aged over 65 years will pay no stamp duty on a new dwelling, as long as they live in it for more than 12 months. In both cases, the new dwelling must cost less than $600,00.
None of the budget measures here involve a large amount of money but, taken with other measures to cut developer contributions to local councils announced last week, will give the housing construction industry a substantial lift.
The government has budgeted $120 million over two years to fund the off-the-plan stamp duty costs, with a further $20 million, also over two years, to finance the stamp duty cuts for those over-65s who are selling the family home to move into smaller housing.
To qualify for zero stamp duty, new dwellings most be at the “pre-construction stage” – that is, before the laying of foundations has begun, although site preparation such as demolishing existing buildings is permitted.
For off-the-plan dwellings where building is under way, stamp duty will fall by 25 per cent.
“What this is about is allowing project finance to be accessed,” the NSW Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, said of the stamp duty cuts to increase off-the-plan sales. “This is a well constructed plan . . . to get a lot more housing stock into the market.”
Since the global financial crisis, property developers have found it difficult to obtain the financing for new developments. A higher level of pre-sale is expected to ease financing pressures, helping developers to get projects off the ground.
The chief executive of Urban Taskforce, Aaron Gadiel, said: “This is a fundamental re-shaping of the stamp duty regime so that it supports new housing development.”
Coupled with the measures to increase housing supply outlined late last week by capping developer contributions to councils for infrastructure, while also paving the way for councils to raise rates beyond the present rate cap, the stamp duty cuts detailed yesterday will result in a boost in the amount of new housing stock being offered for sale.
The NSW acting executive director of the Property Council of Australia, Glenn Byres, said: “The [stamp duty changes] break the back of some of the impediments to bringing housing demand though.”
In pre-budget lobbying, his organisation argued for the government to follow Victoria in cutting stamp duties for dwellings bought off the plan. NSW went a step further, in abolishing stamp duty altogether in some cases.
Treasury expects the additional measures to boost housing stock by 8000 units, twice the estimate arrived at by BIS Shrapnel based on concessional cuts to stamp duty introduced earlier in Victoria.
After the initial two years of stamp duty cuts, they would be reviewed, Mr Roozendaal said.
The $600,000 threshold might also need to be assessed, property industry officials said. “The thresholds may need to be reviewed in 12 months time, to see if it is acting as an impediment to some stock being brought to market,” Mr Byres said. Even with the stamp duty cuts, the state government is budgeting for a $400 million increase in stamp duty revenues from property transactions in 2010-11 and again in 2011-12.
BRIAN ROBINS
June 9, 2010 – Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Morning Herald – 7 June 2010
JONATHAN CHANCELLOR – Sydney Morning Herald
June 7, 2010
But a bullish $4.1 million West Pennant Hills sale has everyone talking.
The recent sale has beaten the $3.35 million Hills District record price that has stood since 2007, and is five times dearer than the suburb’s $780,000 median price.
The recently constructed house sold privately after being built on a 2000-square-metre block that cost $1.1 million in 2007.
Homesearch Solutions Market Update – 3 June 2010
THREE STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK
More Favourable Conditions For Sydney Home Buyers Have Arrived
After a very heated start to the 2010 Sydney real estate season, recent weeks have seen a welcome calm in the frenzy. With volatile stock and currency markets resulting from concerns surrounding European debt levels, the real estate market has come somewhat off the boil.
This has been reflected in auction clearance rates going from well over 70% for March and April to around 63% in late May.
FIRB changes for real estate
CASHED-UP foreigners snapped up $14.9 billion worth of houses and land in Australia last year, including $2.49 billion worth of existing homes.
The Federal Government refused to release but they were in a Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) report that was quietly posted online last week.
It shows the Government issued 4827 real-estate approvals to foreign investors last year for commercial and residential properties.
About half the approvals were for temporary residents wanting to buy a house as their principal residence.
A further 988 approvals were granted to investors to buy vacant land for residential subdivision or to build a houses, according to figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.
The report shows Victoria is the most sought-after state by foreign investors wanting residential real estate, followed by Queensland and NSW.
Homesearch Solutions is a proud member of