THE PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT REVIEW
the infrastructure pipeline remains elevated over the next few years. Evolving sectors such as renewables and hydrogen production may also provide a boost to economic growth, particularly to regional areas. The Australian economy is expected to feel the impacts of these global forces, however, may avoid recession as demand for Australian exports and strong population growth buffers economic slowdown. This is particularly true for Queensland where highest-in-the-country population growth, a robust mining sector and return of tourists and international migrants has positioned Queensland to perform well in the first half of 2023. What market sectors do you anticipate being most in demand over the next six months? The market sectors that we anticipate being most in demand over the next six months would be income producing, land rich development sites. We are still seeing a huge demand for development sites across the board. Demand for commercial land transactions are occurring more frequently and we believe this will continue this year, we have
found there is still strong demand for commercial tenants to commit to land deals and that market is still very buoyant. Do you feel that associated factors like building costs, supply-chain challenges and market sentiment will improve for developers over the next 6-12 months? For instance, have building costs already peaked? Here on ground, we are feeling that building costs are starting to somewhat stabilize, (this is very anecdotal at the moment) but for the first time since the pandemic begun we are slowly hearing whispers from both retail suppliers and builders of such information. There will need to be an adjustment in land values across the board with the drop off of residential values and a increase in cost base. This will require some time to flush through but will represent good value moving forward. What advice do you have for any prospective developers in the current climate? With strong belief that the market is starting to return to pre pandemic levels we believe developers should
be ready for a good deal. Previously if you weren’t able to close a deal quickly ( we saw a huge spike in cash contracts) you didn’t stand a huge chance however we except that to shift again allowing more ‘time’ on transactions. Sellers will also be more open to structured deals again knowing that the market is stabilizing. How have your marketing strategies changed, if at all, over the past 12 months? Marketing strategies have definitely changed over the last 12 months. We have changed predominately to private treaty rather than EOI, the fear of missing out throughout 2021 as dissipated, dictating pricing in the front end of transactions has reduced downtime throughout campaigns and increased transactions. We have increased our marketing to interstate platforms such a Development Ready with a significant increase of new entrants to our local market, each campaign we are unearthing new developers wanting a slice of SEQ.
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