As basically every young Australian constantly rides a wave of paralysing anguish over how comprehensively fucked our housing market is and how massively boomer legislators and investors shat on the Great Australian Dream, there’s still some movement in housing prices in our cities.
Right now, property investors and prospective buyers are cracking the shits about the glut of off-the-plan apartments currently being constructed around Australia. A report by trends forecaster Hotspotting claims that the number of apartments being constructed around Australia outstrips expected demand.
(When we say that Australia has ‘too many apartments’, we obviously don’t mean too many altogether. But too many right now, for the exorbitant prices that are being asked for them in our grossly inflated market. Don’t worry. We’re not Domain.)
This has been identified in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Some analysts see the issue as especially problematic for off-the-plan apartments as it could very well mean that they’ll be worth less when they’re built than when they were bought.
“New supply in Melbourne has gone way over the top but many buyers are unaware of this,” said Hotspotting director Terry Ryder. “The danger is that the risks aren’t glaringly obvious. In other markets buyers may have a better sense of what they’re getting into.”
This kind of thing is why the housing affordability debate is so precarious in the country. Buyers and investors get hugely spooked by the problem of oversupply causing a drop in housing prices, but unless we get a significant drop in housing prices then the next generation is screwed.
Brisbane is identified as an area with a specific issue here – demand is falling and supply is rising sharply across the city for apartments. In Sydney, it’s really confined to new developments like Green Square and apartment-rich zones like Parramatta. Inner Sydney, as expected, is the only place where apartment prices aren’t expected to fall in the short term.
Welp. That’s Australian housing, baby!
Source: News.com.au.
Photo: Getty Images.
