The great unit boom is on!

I would expect ACTPLA to be flooded with applications for change of use lease variations. Land valuers like Colliers & CBRE will be flat out!
Check out some applications on ACTPLAs website. See the valuations V1 & V2, what a joke. ACT Treasury finally caught up with the rort.
Any smart property owner would apply for change of use in the FY 2011-12 as you get a 75% discount of what you will pay in FY 2012-13.
See how fast the next ACT Govt changes CUC in 2012 !

It’s all well and good for the development of these new units on Flemington Road, but to me they just look like the slums of the future. And already some of the other apartments are causing havoc because there is no infrastructure to support the tennents – for example, people are parking on the medium strips and grassed areas because there isnt sufficient parking for visitors. Looks terrible and creates banked up traffic in the mornings.

What we’ll see now is more interest in doing developments around the satellite city centres and major corridors. Flemington Road land is being snapped up and some good designs coming through (not the crappy one at the southern end now being built though).

Just because the DA is in odesn’t mean that the units are going to go up straight away.

It takes a while for the DA process to finish, and then the developers can sit on the property for almost as long as they want.

There are supposed to be time limits for when building starts but that is never enforced in the ACT, so these sites will stay static for a long time, until/unless market conditions make it worth their while. Often they onsell, with the approved DA being an added selling feature. And a good excuse for further delay.

“A huge rush of units hitting the market at the same time might be the best thing this Government’s ever done for housing affordability.”

Nope.

With most unit developers in town chewing their fingernails about whether the market is going to slide further, I’m surprised at this announcement. The feeling in the industry is not one I would call optimistic in the medium term… particularly for developers in the further flung corners of the city.

The ACT government is over-dependant on property fees and levies and god knows what, and yet they can’t even ensure that buildings are built to a minimum standard. They milk the sector for money, but provide nothing of value for it, they choke supply and put in band aid solutions when it emerges that people on average incomes can’t afford to buy.

What will they say when something genuinely ‘massive’ happens. You have to save some of your hyperbole for when you need it.