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发表于 2014-6-1 04:26:01
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House and land packages across Melbourne's outskirts are dropping in price.
Vast tracts are being released for development and are driving prices down.
Lack of supply has been cited as a barrier to entry into the housing market by first-home buyers. But experts are now predicting demand will match supply by 2013/14 as a result of the Growth Areas Authority (GAA) streamlining its processes for bringing land to market.
The GAA has implemented a series of process improvements to cut down the amount of time taken from identifying land with potential for development, through to a home buyer being able to move into their property. The changes have led to ''a frontier'' of new development on Melbourne's fringe.
And, after years of under-supply pushing up the cost of house and land packages, the GAA is hoping the result will be to restore affordability in Melbourne's growth areas of Casey, Cardinia, Hume, Melton, Mitchell, Whittlesea and Wyndham.
The impact of the changes are already being keenly felt in the City of Casey, south of Melbourne, where the GAA recently announced a land release in Clyde North, which is expected to eventually house 18,500 residents.
John Tucker, principal of Finning First National Real Estate in Cranbourne, says the Clyde North release will add to the dozen subdivisions being developed in the area at present. And prices have already dropped as a result.
''In some subdivisions you can buy blocks of land for between $175,000 to $185,000. Twelve to 18 months ago you would struggle to find much under $200,000,'' Mr Tucker says.
GAA chief executive Peter Seamer says the process leading up to a release of land is complex.
The first step is to identify land on Melbourne's fringe that can be included in the urban growth boundary, which means it is potentially available for development. The GAA then develops a masterplan for the land, called a PSP or Precinct Structure Plan.
Creating a PSP involves consulting with all the key stakeholders, including government, council, landowners and developers, to reach agreement on aspects of design, such as where schools, shops and community centres will be located. Reaching a consensus can be a challenge, he says.
''Then we need to get planning permits and subdivision permits from council and then, at the end of the day, you need a building program. Two years ago, that process was taking six years,'' Mr Seamer says. ''We have got it down below two years.
This has ensured land is released in a timely fashion and helps improve housing affordability throughout Melbourne.''
To streamline the process, the GAA has combined steps such as enabling developers to obtain planning permits at the same time as the subdivision.
In line with a push for greater density, the GAA has also announced that 90 per cent of small lots, those under 300 square metres, will no longer require a planning permit, again serving to speed up the process. ''It will be rolled out with new areas at Christmas and then looked at in the other areas,'' Mr Seamer says.
The executive director of Villawood Properties, Rory Costelloe, has been developing land in Melbourne for the past 13 years and says the impact of GAA's more rapid identification and release of vast areas of land has given developers more certainty and will have a huge impact on prices, which have already dropped as a result of the global downturn.
Mr Costelloe says lack of supply had increased the raw land component of a block from 15 per cent to 20 per cent up to ''unsustainable'' levels of 30 per cent to 40 per cent. 'The price has got to come back down to the 15 [per cent] to 20 per cent of your price of the block to restore the affordability.'
Mr Costelloe says he has no doubt supply of land will meet demand by 2013 or 2014 under the new regime.
''There's been pent up demand for the last 10 years; we've never caught up with our demand. ''Australia's peak population increase in 2009 of 457,000, which was nearly double any other year in the last 60 years, has just taken time to wash through and that caused a great demand in 2010 which pushed prices up and everyone just ran out of stock.''
The GAA's new processes will reduce the price of raw land, Mr Costelloe says, and he hopes it will mean the end of speculative buying where people were ''just taking up options on the land and holding them and trying to resell them to real developers, like ourselves, for much higher prices''.
''Because of the economic turmoil, the original landowners won't be as greedy and ask such high prices because there will be plenty of choice,'' he says. ''By 2013/2014 there'll be so much land available on the ground, supply truly meets demand and the whole question of Melbourne affordability is completely solved.
''We're not going to have an artificial constraint which has caused that blow-out in prices, so it will be very, very good for the home buyer that the supply is being restored.''
Keeping an eye on the land supply situation is buyer's advocate Peter Hay, who predicts the supply of land will outstrip demand in the next few years. While he says prices won't begin to increase in growth areas until 2015 or 2016, he encourages first home buyers to act now.
''In the next 12 months go out there and get your first home. It's definitely a buyers' market. There's plenty of supply in the outer suburbs and its getting cheaper.
''Pick your block, buy the biggest you can afford,'' he says.
And there are quality estates being built on Melbourne's fringes, including in Pakenham, South Morang and Melton South, he says.
He also recommends looking at the north and northwest side of the city, which he believes will be transformed by significant infrastructure projects, with the Regional Rail Link and proposed Outer Metropolitan Ring road improving access to and from the city.
''[These projects] will transform the western side of Melbourne.'' |
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