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Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 7 May 2013

We bought a house. Helping people sell their properties every day for a living has me well-equipped for that side of the equation. But it’s 12 years since we last bought a home for our family, so I’m out of condition as a home buyer. As those of you who’ve done it recently will know too well, learning from others’ experiences and mistakes can be a big help. So here’s some of ours:

We found a home we loved before the finance was sorted. Big mistake. Painful stuff. Wife and kids thinking about moving. Friends complimenting us on our choice of home. Then the let-down when we learned we couldn’t afford it and we missed it. If only I’d taken some of my own advice…

I didn’t buy Saturday’s paper. I know some people still do because as a salesperson I use some of their ads and get some calls. But I wanted the full story on each home and I wanted it now. Lots of photos, floorplan, maps, Streetview. I wanted to zoom on local shops. Maybe some home buyers enjoy the foraging.  Picking up a lead from a sign or a paper, an agency window or a magazine ad, before venturing to Domain, REIQ or Realestate for the details. I’m a time-poor and impatient hunter. Many home buyers are.

I’m a big ‘location’ buyer so I didn’t even click into the web advert if the street, and even that part of the street, didn’t appeal. Too many times I’ve been called in to sell for someone who’s unhappy with their neighbourhood and I wasn’t going through a move (the expense, the time, the upheaval) unless I could tick all my boxes on this. When we did find the house we liked I got the entire family, we parked outside, and we walked the neighbourhood for 30 minutes. Listening for dogs, traffic, kids, ABBA karaoke fans… noises you can or can’t live with. Scouring for locals who enjoy disassembling car engines or storing household items on their front lawn.

We studied floorplans. If you’re selling and don’t have one you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m clear on what layout works for our family and what doesn’t and, not surprisingly, most home buyers are too. I value my spare time too much to traipse around open homes, so I only wanted to visit the ones that really came close. What’s important in your home search? Do the priority list and know what you can and can’t compromise on.

Ask yourself – what’s the point of inspecting that place if it’s not fitting the bill? (I’ve met so many disillusioned buyers at open homes over the years, all dragging themselves around in the hope a home will magically transform itself when they walk in the door. Guess what? It won’t.) We talked through our ‘must haves’ and ‘good to haves but not paying for it’, and we waited patiently (well, I waited patiently and my wife paced up and down like a hungry cat). In the end we only inspected 6 homes.

We got the new listing alert on email one Friday and bought the house that Saturday. At the first open home. Did we get a bargain? Nope. Did we battle them out on price. Nope. Because we found what we wanted and knew there were others who felt the same way. Some of my friends are horrified at the idea of me, a real estate agent, admitting this – but maybe we even paid a bit much. I wasn’t going to let someone else buy the home for a price I was prepared to pay.

In finding the right place for our family, with a good neighbourhood and a house that offered what we needed (and a bit of what we ‘wanted’ too), we knew there was no perfect property. Regardless of your budget there never is. We didn’t care if we missed out on boasting rights for best price. But we were comfortable we’d done our homework and had found a house we could call home.

Until that guy at Number 67 starts playing Ricky Martin at full volume on a Sunday morning. Then we’re out of there.

Share your home-buying stories by commenting below… Do you have tips on finding the right home?

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Posted in Brisbane's sales market, just for fun! | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 3 May 2013

Australia’s home prices snuck backwards in April according to the RPData-Rismark April Hedonic Home Value Index. RPData says since the housing market reached a recent low point at the end of May 2012, capital city dwelling values have recovered by 4.2%. Director of research, Tim Lawless, says the April results represent more of a stumble along the path to recovery than a sign of a renewed trend in value falls.

• Brisbane’s dwelling prices dropped 0.7% in April, down 0.9% for the quarter, but up 2% on the same time last year.

• Brisbane units outperformed houses again, rising 0.8% for the quarter to be up 3.6% year on year (compared to houses with an April drop of 0.9% and growth of 1.9% for the year)

• Our median dwelling price of $425,000 is third lowest amongst the capitals, ahead of only Adelaide’s $375,000 and Hobart’s $311,500. Sydney is still the nation’s most expensive at $565,000.

How about you give us your opinion for a change! Share your comments below.

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Posted in Brisbane's sales market | No Comments »

Posted by Conor Blake on 30 April 2013

From time to time landlords ask for a special term to be included in the tenancy agreement for their property, and for the most part these are easy to implement and cause no concern. But the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act is very prescriptive and real estate agents, and especially self-managed landlords, need to be very careful those short few words in a lease aren’t enough to land them in seriously hot water.

The RTA reports the directors of a Brisbane real estate agency have recently been fined $4,200 each after pleading guilty to charges of including unlawful special terms in tenancy agreements.

What went wrong? The agents (it’s unclear if they were acting on client instructions in error) had terms that required the tenants to pay for repairs and maintenance which could generally be considered fair wear and tear. They also wanted to be able to enter the property without notice at the end of a tenancy, and required the tenants to give 6 weeks notice of their intention to end the tenancy, instead of the legally required 2 weeks notice.

These clauses might sound extreme, even for the casual observer. But given the Act requires a tenant to keep the home clean, requiring carpets to be shampooed every 6 months might sound justified. The RTA says that’s illegal and the agency was fined for including it in the agreement.

As always, ignorance of the law is no defence and of course a property manager should be expected to be fully informed on the law. It’s not often we hear about a conviction but tenancy law in Queensland is complex and detailed. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

Landlords need to ensure they have the best advice when they look to vary from the standard terms on any tenancy agreement.

What do you think? Should a landlord and tenant be able to mutually agree on terms like these? Or should the law protect tenants?

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Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »

Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 17 April 2013

Stop for just a moment and think about each room in your home. How often is that room used? Is it a spare bedroom (the ABS says 78% of Australian households have at least one)? Is it a formal dining room, last used when we hosted Saturday night dinner parties and sat down to Sunday lunch roast?

It’d be fair to say many of us pay for a lot of home that we rarely use. Not just when we buy it, but to maintain, cool, light and clean. So why are home-buyers so obsessed with the volume of space? It’s every second question an agent gets. Yet the design and furnishing of that space is often under-studied and over-looked.

We’ve recently had some studio apartments for sale. Small apartments, with combined living and bedroom spaces. And it’s been interesting to see buyer responses. One of them has a stunning riverfront position, close by to South Bank for $279,000. But for many of us, the idea of combining living and sleeping spaces is a struggle. As the desire to stay close to Brisbane’s city grows, along with home prices, we’re been forced to really consider the importance of the size of a home.

So take a minute and watch this video on some fresh design ideas in furnishing. If it saved you $50,000 to $100,000 could you fold your bed away each morning and transform your bedroom back to living space? Would spare beds materialising out of sleek cabinetry in a living room be a better option than a whole room saved for that occasional visiting relative?

Another video tells the story of one New Yorker living in an 8m2 apartment! I couldn’t do it, but what a magical city to have right outside and at a budget price.

Now back to those rooms in your home that you rarely (never?) use. How much could you save by downsizing? One of the most frustrated buyer groups we meet in Brisbane’s inner-city marketplace is the “suburban empty-nester”. These couples come to our open homes, hoping to finally make a lifestyle shift from their half-empty houses to be close to cafes, galleries and the vibrancy of the city. But what stops them? They feel they need at least 3 bedrooms, two living rooms… and more. And they often can’t afford the changeover.

None of us want to feel cramped and compromised in our home. But it’s time we opened up the discussion on how to better use the space we have, and can afford.

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Posted in architecture and renovation, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 16 April 2013

The latest stats are out on our rental market. The Residential Tenancies Authority records the rent when a new bond is lodged and each quarter we sit down to analyse the results and get a handle on emerging trends. Here’s the number for the March quarter released this week:

  • Across Brisbane median weekly rent for a 2 bed apartment rose $5 to $395
  • Inner-city suburbs saw rents sneak back $12 to $470/week
  • Over the past year the inner-city suburbs have had rent growth of 3.3%, compared to greater Brisbane’s 1.3% rise
  • We track 2 bed apartments as our ‘headline’ stats due to their dominance in the rental market: but for comparison Brisbane’s 3 bed houses have remained at $400 per week for the past 15 months
  • March was a busy time for tenancy changeovers; it’s always the busiest quarter but 2013 saw 4% more bonds lodged than 2012
  • By law all bonds held for a rental home must be lodged with the RTA, so their full count can provide interesting info: e.g. Our inner-city (just 21 suburbs) is home to 24% of Brisbane’s rental pool, with almost 33,000 rented dwellings
  • This inner-city rental supply grew by 124 dwellings in the March quarter; postcode 4000 rose by just 14 homes

How about you give us your opinion for a change! Share your comments below

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Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »

Posted by Conor Blake on 2 April 2013

All landlords want to achieve the highest possible rent for their property, as do their Property Managers. What’s equally important is having a good tenant in place paying rent. Sometimes the blinkers come on and landlords and agents can be guilty of seeing only the rent they want and not the rent they are losing by having the property vacant. So what’s better for you financially? To get the best possible rental price, or reduce the vacancy of the property?

Let’s compare:

  • $500 per week for 6 months is $13,000
  • $500 per week for 6 months but with a vacancy of 3 weeks is $11,500

versus:

  • $480 per week for 6 months is $12,480
  • $480 per week for 6 months but with a vacancy of only 1 week is $12,000

Leaving your property sit vacant for more than a week or two can be more detrimental to your bottom line than you think.

People also talk about the benefits of keeping your tenants happy by only charging them a sensible rent and not pushing their limitations too much. This can be true and there’s no doubt a low turnover of tenants, provided they look after the property and pay their rent, will save you money.

So do your calculations and have a game plan in mind for when your properties become vacant. And most importantly of all, use a property manager you trust and who knows the market.

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Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's rental market | No Comments »

Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 27 March 2013

If this really is to be “The Asian Century”, the growth of its population and economic impacts continuing to surprise, it seems time we started looking to that continent for trends in property that we’d best be prepared for. What’s driving markets in China, India, Singapore, Indonesia and other nations? Are there lessons from their experiences and how might property and property owners in Brisbane be affected in years to come?

Two of the Bees Nees City Realty team have just returned from the First Asia Pacific Real Estate Convention in Singapore, and here’s some of the insights gained from hearing speakers from throughout the region, most of them leaders of their respective property industries:

Demographic change is key to much of the planning by Asian governments. India will soon become the most populous nation, and of their 1.22b residents 50% are 25 years or younger. Maybe not surprisingly there are 865 million mobile phone users in India! The nation already has a middle class numbering 250 million people.

On the other hand Japan’s population is shrinking and aging, with 30% now 65 years or older. Their property prices peaked in 1990 and have trended downwards ever since. Just when they showed signs of stablising in 2011 they had the earthquake and tsunami… (I’ll never complain about our Brisbane market again)

Hong Kong home prices have doubled since 2009. Less than 40% of their home owners have any mortgage left to repay as, like many Asian nations, they’re great savers. So what will they all do with that soaring equity?!

Government intervention in housing markets is common across Asian nations. Prices have soared so quickly in places like Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong there’s now new taxes and duties to discourage property speculation. Despite this in many market buyers are still busy, with home loans on offer for around 1.5%.

The Singapore government now has laws allowing/encouraging apartment buildings to be torn down and replaced by larger, new towers that house more residents in the same land area. If 80% of your neighbours want to sell up you must sell too: civil liberties are not as important as recycling of housing stocks. Mind you, some owners do well out of these changeovers. One recent project saw S$800,000 apartments bought up for S$2.1m each – all 618 of them! A new development on the site will house 1,715 apartments. Believe it or not we’ve already seen some moves like this in Brisbane’s CBD, and if your apartment’s in a prime spot on a large block, what might the future hold?

Leasehold property is still the norm in many countries, with 99 years standard in Singapore. They envy our freehold tenure but seem unfazed by the short timeframes of their leases. So we asked a local agent, do buyers care if the apartment’s 30 years old and the lease is down to just 70 years or less? “No way” she says, they’re waiting for a developer to buy them out! Very few residential properties ever reach 40-50 years.

China’s real estate industry is very much in its infancy, with government control and regulation very common. Agents need to be licensed and have compulsory annual training – something we’ve been pushing for in Queensland! Interestingly the major agency franchise groups are getting a strong foothold.

We’ll leave it to you to ‘read the tea leaves’ from these notes. What seems obvious to us is the mind-blowing growth in population and wealth, the ingrained love of property and the forward-planning, long-term thinking that’s second nature to our northern cousins. We might not know what the next 50 years holds for Brisbane property but it’s a fair bet our ties to Asia will grow closer.

Please share your comments.

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Posted in Brisbane's future & new infrastructure, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »

Posted by admin on 27 March 2013

If you’ve seen the new ads on TV you’ll notice the state government’s working hard to encourage first home buyers to sign up for a brand new home. But since last year’s grant for buying a second-hand home was canned there’s been a noticeable change in FHB numbers. Thanks to REIQ and ABS here’s some stats:

  • In January Queensland’s FHB numbers sunk to new depths, registering just 750 dwellings financed (down 52.6%), marking the lowest ever result since the ABS began publishing such data from 1991.
  • Queensland’s non-First Home Buyer dwellings financed totalled 6,448 for January 2013, up 11.7% on the same month in 2012.
  • Nationally the average loan for FHB’s rose $2,800 to $297,100 in January. The average loan size for all owner occupied housing commitments fell $1,200 to $307,100 for the same period.
  • The number of FHB commitments as a percentage of total owner occupied housing finance commitments remained at 14.9% in January 2013.
  • This is the weakest proportion of first-home buyers in the housing market since June 2004
  • The new Qld state government incentive for new homes has been slow to gain traction. Property Observer reports “Just 126 first-home buyers have taken advantage of the FHOCG since it was launched on September 12 last year”.

How about you give us your opinion for a change! Share your comments

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    Posted in Brisbane's sales market | 2 Comments »

    Posted by admin on 26 March 2013

    Fresh design ideas for granny flats: courtesy LifestyleGrannyFlats.com.au

    Brisbane’s population continues to grow and finding homes for our new residents now, and into the future, will continue to challenge Brisbanites and our politicians. Most agree we don’t want urban sprawl, with the massive strain on infrastructure that results from pushing new houses further and further into the ‘burbs. So maybe we need to broaden our thinking on our housing options?

    Four years ago the NSW government gave granny flats the nod as a sensible way to house extra residents. For those NIMBY’s who don’t want change near them, these new homes really are in your back yard! Provided you have 450m2 there are now very few limitations throughout NSW for granny flats, and a fast-tracked approval process to boot. So for around $100,000 our southern cousins are dropping in an extra dwelling behind their house, collecting the rent for a tidy investment return, and providing relatively low cost housing in the process.

    Could it work in Brisbane? Why not? Our existing rules have plenty of restrictions so a flat out the back or, more commonly, under the house, can only be occupied by the same “household group”. But how is the type of resident living in a granny flat really any different in how it impacts neighbours? Or local amenities and services? So instead of empty rumpus rooms why can’t Council support extra rental homes? There’s plenty of these happening unofficially across the city of course.

    Or instead of the upkeep on a yard forcing many aging home-owners to move, we could allow them to build a small second home on the block? They could even move in themselves (some of the designs are better than you’d expect) enjoying the low maintenance and no stairs, while the larger home is rented to people who need the space. We’ve written about NORCS in the past – those ‘naturally occurring retirement communities’ that are growing throughout Brisbane’s inner city because many of us want to stay in the area we know and love. Wouldn’t modern granny flats be a great way to support this trend?

    This week’s Courier Mail reported BCC’s plans to allow taller skyscrapers in our CBD. Council’s looking to raise the height limits, arguing another 20 storeys could give our economy a $2billion boost. No doubt there’ll be plenty of debate over Brisbane’s skyline and the pros and cons of cloud-topping towers.

    And in the meantime maybe planners should take another look at some simple options to add more residents into our neighbourhoods?

    Please give us your thoughts. Would you be happy to have a granny flat built in your neighbour’s back yard?

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    Posted in Brisbane's future & new infrastructure, architecture and renovation, trends in Brisbane property | 2 Comments »

    Posted by admin on 6 March 2013

    The Reserve Bank kept the official cash rate at 3% this week, saying in their official statement that, “dwelling investment appears to be slowly increasing with higher dwelling prices and rental yields.” So here’s some stats that might be of interest:

    - Official rates have now had 6 cuts, dropping 1.75% in the past 16 months. The current rate is the lowest on record.

    - The HIA says banks have withheld 0.4% of these cuts.

    - The lowest interest rate available for a home loan is now down to 4.83% according to ratecity.com.au

    - Yellow Brick Road’s Suzy Butterworth reminds borrowers to check what happens after any introductory periods. “There’s often a big change after that initial time.”

    - Fixed rates are now on offer from 4.99% for 3 year and 5 years from 5.59%

    - Know what you’ll be doing in the year 2023? You can even choose to fix for 10 years with rates starting at 7.49%

    - Commonwealth Bank is the dominant lender with more than one million home loan customers. The bank’s huge buying power when they source funds has some commentators tipping them to drop rates outside an official RBA change.

    - ANZ makes their monthly rates announcement this Friday

    How about you give us your opinion for a change! Share your comments

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    Posted in Brisbane landlords, Brisbane's sales market, property taxes and rates etc | No Comments »

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