We are pleased to provide you with another edition of The Development Digest.
- Forthcoming Site Campaign: Major South-Eastern Landholding
- Headlines of the Week
- Current & Forthcoming JLL Development Site Opportunities
Forthcoming Site Campaign: Major South-Eastern Landholding
The JLL Development Site Services team are delighted to be bringing to market in the coming weeks a landmark, 7,500sqm + landholding in one of Melbourne’s most affluent and well established south-eastern suburbs.
With three extensive street frontages and flexible planning parameters, the site provides a plethora of exciting potential development outcomes and will be a truly precinct defining project.
Please contact the JLL team for further information on this exciting opportunity.
Headlines of the Week
The Australian – Tea House development plans receive approval
- Private developer MONNO’s recut plans for a $280m redevelopment of the Robur Tea House have won approval from Heritage Victoria, and it will bring a top luxury hotel to Melbourne as part of the plan.
- The latest plans aim to celebrate the 135-year-old complex at 28 Clarendon St, Southbank, with the design by acclaimed Norwegian architecture practice Snohetta consisting of seven integrated buildings ranging from three to 30 levels.
- The precinct will now be anchored by a 221-room uber-luxury hotel. MONNO has run an international expression-of-interest campaign, which received submissions from 15 of the world’s best hotel groups, before appointing a preferred operator.
The AFR – High costs choke supply of new homes: experts
- High interest rates and construction costs are choking off the supply of new housing, adding pressure to rents, squeezing first home buyers out of the market and putting the national target of 1.2 million new homes over five years out of reach, property experts say.
- High construction costs are being singled out amid a complex mix of factors that have pushed up the cost of building in most capital cities at a faster rate than house price growth, making it less economical to build new dwellings relative to buying an established home.
- The annual run rate of approvals is running at about 164,000, well short of the federal government’s ambitious target of building 240,000 dwellings annually over the next five years. Meanwhile, population growth of about 635,000 annually is running at near record highs.
The AFR – Build-to-rent slumps as high costs hit
- The construction of build-to-rent projects slumped by 19 per cent over the 2024 financial year in the face of high borrowing costs and policy uncertainty over the tax regime applied to foreign-owned projects, according Oxford Economics Australia.
- Commencements for new rental units fell to 5290 in 2024, well down on the 6543 starts achieved a year earlier. By 2027, commencements would jump well past 8000, dominated by Victoria where suitably located land parcels are comparatively cheaper.
- One hurdle for increased foreign investment is the imposition of a 30 per cent withholding tax on the managed investment trusts through which offshore players typically hold build-to-rent assets they have developed in Australia. The government has promised to halve that tax, bringing it in line with the tax rate applied to other forms of foreign-owned commercial property.
The AFR – Few affordable suburbs left as house prices rise
- The portion of affordable housing markets in Sydney has halved to 5.5 per cent in the past year but only fell slightly to 28.5 per cent from 29.6 per cent of all suburbs in Melbourne.
- The pool of affordable unit markets has also shrunk across the capital cities in the past year. Across Sydney, only 5.9 per cent of all unit markets are affordable, down from 8.7 per cent a year ago. In Melbourne, the share of affordable suburbs fell to 14 per cent from 19.5 per cent.
The AFR – Suburbs turn into buyers’ markets as listings pile up
- ‘‘Our data shows listing volumes are climbing and there’s a marked increase in the number of homeowners intending to sell over this period, as reflected by a higher-than-average number of agency agreements signed across BresicWhitney,’’ he said.
- Data from real estate agency Ray White shows listing authorities jumped 19 per cent nationally over the rolling 28 days compared to a year ago, indicating more properties are about to hit the market.
- New listings have also increased above the five-year average across Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart, where they are now 19.3 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 18 per cent higher respectively.
The AFR – Historic Melbourne Salvos site now luxury hotel
- Hong Kong-based hotel and serviced apartment operator Lanson Place will make its long-awaiting Australian debut in September, after partnering with developer Woodlink on the $80 million transformation of one of East Melbourne’s most distinctive and historic buildings – the former Salvation Army Printing Works.
- In a project conceived six years ago, but delayed by the pandemic and the collapse in 2021 of its original builder Probuild (replaced by Roberts & Co) Woodlink has transformed the 123-year-old red brick building overlooking Parliament Gardens into a hotel lobby, bar and restaurant and created a new 15-storey accommodation tower behind it.
- Designed by renowned London architects Conran & Partners and offering 80 hotel rooms and 57 studio and one-bedroom apartments, Lanson Place Parliament Gardens will be only the ninth Lanson Place hotel globally, and the first to open outside Asia.
Current & Forthcoming JLL Development Site Opportunities
We are proud to be handling some of the most exciting development offerings in the market.
Should you wish to receive additional information or if you have a specific requirement or mandate you would like to discuss, please contact any member of the JLL team for a confidential discussion.
We hope you have enjoyed another edition of The Development Digest. Please contact our team if there is anything we can assist you with.??
