Daily Buzz: Saturday, 20 January

PropertyBuzz, your daily dose of property news.

Adelaide breaks ground on an innovative new development, a kit home maker comes under fire, and just how tight are Qld’s vacancy rates?

Welcome to Property Buzz! I’m Grace Ormsby. Today is Saturday, 20 January.

– The South Australian government, a developer, and social housing provider are collaborating to create a 680-home community named Oaklands Green in Adelaide’s South, which has just broken ground on its social housing component. 

– The development sits on a site that formerly hosted housing authority homes built in the 1950s. 

-The 16 -hectare site will include 235 new social housing dwellings and 450 market-ready homes, with at least 15 per cent of the latter sold at affordable prices through the HomeSeeker initiative.

– Because of the partnership between the South Australian Housing Authority, social housing provider Junction, and a specially-created developer for the project,, it’s ultimately being delivered at no capital cost to the government.

And Consumer Affairs Victoria has taken action against a tiny home kit retailer and the business’s director for failing to deliver customers’ orders and not providing refunds.

– My Tiny Kit Home was the subject of numerous complaints from customers who either didn’t receive their orders, refunds, or discovered that the order they had been delivered was incomplete.

– The business has entered into an enforceable undertaking with the watchdog that will see it contact all customers who are awaiting news of their purchase and offer refunds or solid plans to deliver the products. The company’s business practices are also being monitored to ensure future orders are delivered in a timely manner.

Finally, the Real Estate Institute of Queensland has warned that a “meaningful reprieve” for Queensland’s tenants remains a pipe dream. Their latest Residential Vacancy Rate Report for the final quarter of 2023 found “incredibly tight conditions” continue to impact Queenslanders who rent.

– The state’s overall vacancy rate is now just 0.9 per cent, substantially below the 2.5 per cent threshold that indicates a “tight” rental market, per the institute.

– According to the new data, 44 per cent of local government areas saw rental vacancies fall even further in the December quarter, with one quarter staying static. Only 30 per cent of LGAs saw a lift in vacancies, and the REIQ stressed that they did not relax “materially”.

-In total, over half of all Queensland rental markets are now seeing vacancy rates of below 1 per cent.

That’s Property Buzz for today.

See you again on Monday,  22 January, for your daily dose of Property Buzz.

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