Demand For ‘Dirt’ Drives Construction

SOUTHEAST Queensland’s property market was struggling to keep up with demand for home sites and despite a push for densification was not ready to embrace apartment living.

So says a prominent national developer, who forecasts that demand in the region will remain strong and drive opportunities for local builders over the next five years.

Villawood Properties executive director Tony Johnson said in that period the group would bring 1000 new home sites to the market across three projects in Logan and on the Gold Coast.

He said the three projects – Montego Hills at Kingsholme, The Surrounds at Helensvale and yet-to-be unveiled Sequana at Logan Reserve – would provide more than 224ha of land for new builds, providing a solid pipeline of construction.

“Construction is such an important part of Queensland’s economy, with recent figures showing the construction industry is the third biggest employer of Queenslanders and was the largest contributor to the increase in employment in the final quarter of 2016,” Mr Johnson said.

Villawood entered the Queensland market in 2008 with the opening of its regional office.

According to the group’s Queensland development manager Michael Williams, the demand for greenfield home sites was particularly strong on the Gold Coast.

“The Gold Coast is popular again,” he said. “On the back of the construction activity for the Commonwealth Games people are seeing it will bring a lot of work and a lot more investment .”

But Mr Williams said the challenge ahead was that no new large tracts of land were being opened up for development under the draft Southeast Queensland Regional Plan.

“People still want a piece of dirt and I don’t think the market is ready to soak up apartment living, especially in southeast Queensland,” he said.

“Greenfield pockets are now really restricted to Redlands , Logan, Ipswich and Moreton Bay … there’s not a lot on the Gold Coast and there’s not a lot in Brisbane.”

He said as a result the focus would likely shift to infill development opportunities and townhouse developments.

“People are happy now to go a little bit smaller on land size,” he said.

“But they still want to have three or four-bedroom house and they can have that with townhouses.”

Source: Gold Coast Bulletin 7 April 2017

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