We dig into the average land size and prices being paid. For example, 50% of all land sold across Melbourne in September 2018 was in Melbourne’s western corridor. Nicki Hay gives us the facts.
Listen to the interview now:
Transcript:
Kevin: There’s always a lot of focus on what’s happening in Sydney and Melbourne and we’re going to turn this interview into a look specifically at the Melbourne market. Of course, we know that it’s all about supply and demand, and supply is all about new land coming on. That’s why we’re going to focus in this interview on where the land corridors are opening up around Melbourne.
Kevin: Joining me to talk about it, Nicki Hay from Core Projects, they specialise in bringing land on, and also project marketing and projects. Nicki thank you for joining us in the show. What through your company are you seeing about land and its availability and where is it opening up?
Nicki: Thanks, Kevin. I guess what we’re seeing at the moment is that there’s still supply coming on in I guess all the regions around Melbourne, in the southeast and the west. Certainly Geelong has become a more predominant player sort of over the last twelve months. Really, where the true supply where were seeing a lot of the volume being done. Is where were seeing sort of average sales figures is the west does have a larger supply of land at the moment. And it’s sort of coming online as well.
Kevin: So what areas would that take in when you talk about Melbourne’s West?
Nicki: Its sort of taking in [inaudible 00:01:18] Rock Bank, Plumpton all of those areas’ sort of. Within that 40 ks of the CBD.
Kevin: Yeah I believe that in September you reported that 50% of all the lots sold were sold in that area. What was the average price, how much do they selling for?
Nicki: I mean in that market it depends, so an area like Plumpton that is closer to the established suburbs like Caroline Springs they have a higher average. But if were sort of looking generally at the west it would sort of be anywhere between sub $300 to sort of $325k.
Kevin: And what size lots are they, typically?
Nicki: Typically, I should sort of put it around $400k and give or take sort of 5% on either side of that.
Kevin: And resales… are they having any uptick in prices, is there any increase?
Nicki: Yes, certainly if you sort of purchased between twelve and eighteen months ago you would…there’s a significant price up lift there. Probably since, in the land market we sort of…the figures tell us that around January, February is really where…it has peaked if you will in terms of price points. So sort of purchasing from there to here on in. Is probably not a great shift within that timeframe.
Kevin: Where are the areas most developing around Melbourne? What are you seeing in terms of where people are wanting to live basically?
Nicki: Yeah, it’s been really interesting to observe sort of over the last eighteen months, the number of people looking to Geelong. Certainly that was affordability to begin with but now I think you know, people who have had family or friends who have moved out there or are doing the rental stage before they buy and they’re realising the lifestyle benefits of Geelong. And we’re seeing the increased market really about to do substantial volume. For example, one of our largest projects out near Warralily, sort of did 550 sales in 12 months there.
Kevin: Yeah, because those regional area around Geelong as you mentioned and even out into Gippsland there’s really good communication links to get people back into Melbourne. We’re finding a lot of people are actually moving to some of those regionally areas and then travelling back into Melbourne to work as well.
Nicki: Yeah, definitely. I think initially when we started work on that project it was, a lot more of a local purchaser. That sort of ,in the last twelve months particularly, there has been quite a substantial increase in the number of people out of the area being from Melbourne West or even from inner Melbourne that are looking for that lifestyle change. Or affordability but yet that can commute back. That’s been a really strong trend that we’ve noticed out in Geelong.
Kevin: I’ve been talking Nicki Hay. Nicki is Core Projects retail director. Nicki, thank you very much for your time.
Nicki: No worries. Thanks for having me Kevin.
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Kevin Tuner worked in radio as General Manager of various east coast radio stations. He started in real estate in 1988 and was ranked in the Top 10 Salespeople in the state until he was appointed as State CEO 1992. He also operated a number of real estate offices as business owner and was General Manager of several real estate offices in Christchurch.
He now hosts a real estate show on Radio 4BC and a weekly podcast at www.realestatetalk.com.au and a daily 7 to 10 minute podcast show for real estate professionals at www.reuncut.com.au.
To hear more podcasts by Kevin Turner, click here
Disclaimer: while due care is taken, the viewpoints expressed by interviewees and/or contributors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Your Investment Property.
