CBD Office Vacancies
The current state of the various CBD office markets is probably your best barometer of future activity for two reasons. First, the Property Council of Australia (PCA) conducts six-monthly surveys to establish the CBD vacancy rates right around Australia.
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Earlier this year, you read about a funding crisis pending for Property Trusts and Institutional buyers. And this is not helped by the RuddBank failing to materialise.
With a surge in the Share Market since March, several recent capital raisings have helped some of these larger property owners.
However, with the latest hiccup in Share Market confidence, you’re unlikely to see much more capital raised in this way.
Capital Gap
As you can appreciate, the financiers are proving to be rather difficult.
Therefore, over the next two years, you could see a gap of up to $30 billion emerge, between properly valuations and what bank are prepared to fund.
But these problems seem to relate mostly to commercial properties worth more than $20 million.
Because, for properties less than $10 million … the market appears conservatively geared, and is experiencing strong demand — especially for properties in Melbourne, priced under $5 million.
So it is somewhat a two-tiered market … with a number of good opportunities starting to emerge.
h3. And Rentals are Set to Rise …
The recent boom period saw prime Office rentals in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth hit the $1,000 per sq metre mark. However, they have fallen dramatically from that peak, since mid-2008
Meanwhile, Melbourne has remained steady at around $750 per sq metre — mainly because most of its new development has occurred in pre-committed medium-rise buildings, within the Docklands precinct.
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In an earlier article, I gave you a bullet-point comparison of how things are NOW … compared to the early 1990s … in relation to Commercial property.
Anyway, here are some very revealing graphs — based upon figures from the RBA.
Now & Then
Private Investors continue to dominate the Melbourne Commercial Office market.
Right now, sales around $20 million are slow; and over $40 million are few and far between.
Suburban Office Sales
Research by Knight Frank shows that last year saw $240 million recorded in suburban Office Sales. And already this year, they have totalled some $100 million.
And 97% of those sales have been to Private Investors.
CBD Office Sales
Institutional buyers and REITs have virtually withdrawn from the market … leaving private syndicates, wealthy families and overseas buyers to transact most of the deals.
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Queensland seems to have been hardest hit. And in particular the Gold Coast, where vacancy levels have soared to around 18%.
But the difficulties confronting Queensland (and fellow mining State WA) are not necessarily reflected Australia-wide.
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Anecdotal evidence suggests that consumers are cutting back on their spending around Australia. And it’s likely that luxury items and overseas travel will be the most affected.
A recent article in The Age expounded “The Flight to Value” — where Australian Property Monitors reported a 24% drop in the median price for Toorak Homes, in the 6 months to September.
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Will things really change all that much, now that Australia has wall-to-wall Labor governments across the country?
You’d better believe it!
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