Nobody loves change. So we understand some of the commentary about the new Property Occupations Act which commences on Monday December 1st. The Act has some new provisions around auctions and there’s been some confusion over what it means.
It’s time for some clarity to reassure sellers and buyers that auction will continue as a popular sale method for many years to come. After December 1st a real estate salesperson handling an auction property can, and usually will, provide a...

Confidence remains high in the property market with a new survey revealing investors are keen to keep buying. 
 
The majority of investors polled for the Smart Property Investment/PIPA Property Investor Sentiment Survey revealed they were planning to enter the market again in the next six to 12 months. The survey found 80 per cent of investors believed now was a good time to invest in property, while 68 per cent planned to do exactly that in the next six to 12 months. PIPA cha...

Real estate agents have been fooled for more than a decade, falsely believing they were banned from giving auction price guides. Despite the Real Estate Institute of Queensland chief executive officer Antonia Mercorella stating the absence of price guides for auctions had long been the status quo, it turns out that's not the case. Or at least, it didn't need to be. A spokesman from the Office of Fair Trading said, "The short answer is, they can give a price guide onli...

Sales activity across Queensland over the June quarter was up across all property types, according to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ). The REIQ Queensland Market Monitor for the June Quarter 2014 reveals increases in preliminary sales for house, units and townhouses. Vacant land sales were up an impressive 37 per cent. REIQ Acting CEO Antonia Mercorella said while the state’s total house sales were up across all price points, the upper end of the market continu...

Major infrastructure projects planned around Queensland lead a spate of compulsory property acquisitions and affected land owners are being warned to ensure they receive their full entitlements. In one of the latest examples, Brisbane City Council announced in early October that it would resume 38 properties on Lytton Road as part of the Wynnum Road corridor upgrade. Leeson Valuers Partner, John Leeson said owners of affected properties on Lytton Road would know about the acquisiti...

Nationally, 58% of flats, units and apartments are owned by investors. That is quite an amazing statistic, especially when you compare that with detached houses where only 21% are investor owned.
Across the capital cities the proportions are even higher. Darwin tops the list with 70.6% of all units being rented followed by Brisbane where 70.2% of all units are rented.

The lowest proportion, 60.3% in Sydney, is still significant. I would presume Sydney’s proportion is probably ...

Once a year we get a look at some key stats on the changing face of Queensland’s rental marketplace when the Residential Tenancies Authority spits out their annual report. Holding every rental bond they’re in the best spot to observe the trends, so here’s some notes from this week’s report:   34% of Queensland’s private dwellings are rented, the highest proportion in the nation - there’s 513,415 rental homes in this state The R...

Like all good explanations of real estate trends, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Brisbane’s inner-city is undergoing a surge in new apartment construction and, depending who you believe, we’re either about to be flooded with so many surplus dwellings that prices and rents will plummet – or residents from south of the border will blindly relocate to our city like moths to the lightbulb, filling our inner-suburbs to the brim. Our agency’s an active ob...

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