QLD Griffin and North Lakes

Hehe. I was just kidding in response to "There's more to property than just being near water."

 

In Sydney.

 

in my opinion you are paying too much for the house in North Lakes.
Northlakes is miles and miles away from Brisbane it may not seem far in Sydney kilometres but it is a long way away from anything much that is happening
I think you are much better off putting that money into something where the overall price is geared more towards the land then the house

 

My broker mentioned mango hill tonight while we were going through some paperwork... @Chris White what was your reason that you won't buy in mango hill? The same reason that more land supply like north lakes?

 

I have just gone unconditional on a property in Kallangur in the older established part.

My rationale for choosing this suburb is as follows;

• Close proximity to the newer residential suburbs of North Lakes etc where property prices can command up to a $100k more than the older parts of Kallangur
• Close proximity to the North Lakes town centre (so all the benefits of North Lakes without the North Lakes residential price-tag)
  
• Kallangur has it's own high street shopping precinct which provides employment drivers
  
• The government is encouraging Transient Oriented Developments which increases the likelihood of rezoning in the right locations for the right sized block (mine is 800+sqm)
• I feel that Kallangur has an upwards CG trajectory as it has only just passed it's previous peak
• I do see that there are high levels of supply, however i think that most of the potential land releases south of Anzac parade (all the way to Brissy) have already been developed so over time supply should tighten

Interested in whether people agree / disagree with my rationale

 

Yes, that's right Larry, too much supply around North Lakes and Mango Hill areas. If you start around Dohles Rocks Rd Griffin and drive around the back way via Brays Rd, you will see all the new stuff being built (and yet to be built around Griffin) which will put pressure on rents and prices. Then all the new H & L packages in North Lakes, Mango Hill to add to this.

The scary part is that a large portion of these new H & L properties are being sold to interstate investors on the back of a 'new train station' and infrastructure - with rental guarantees to boot.

I am bullish about Brisbane but not this particular location - at the moment.

Does your broker have any financial interest in recommending this area?

 

No I don't think so. He only suggested the area because he heard at a seminar.

 

They are really pushing these properties far and wide and that's the problem.

 

Your rationale seems spot on. The red bits are me playing Devil's Advocate

I think you might want to consider the new council plans to have gazillions of apartments built in close proximity to the Petrie paper mill redevelopment. I would want to know where in Kallangur you call "old" as old can be anything more than 10 years to me. I'd still prefer the nice areas of Bray Park and Strathpine as you are closer to Brisbane CBD and further in than the feral metropolis. Did you know there are sections of Kallangur that do not have town water. Our house at North Lakes attracts nice professional tenants who can afford to pay high rent.

 

The vacancy rate in North Lakes is 3.98%, dropped from 5.94% 12 months ago. I am still not convinced.

 

Are you saying you are not convinced with the new station and uni going in next suburb?

 

no no not at all, just saying that NL does not seem to match my investment criteria: house at reasonable cost yet to be able to be rented out easily.

 

3.98% is a very reasonable rate, Kallangur is even lower.

 

I'd look for 2% or lower if buying.

 

2% will attract a lot of competition. I think 4% is reasonable given you pick a better quality stock.

 

I guess Sydney's traditionally been a tight rental market and if the vacancy rate was 4% in a suburb here (e.g. Rhodes), I'd be steering well clear of that suburb.

 

When I first started educating myself about investing, 4% was the normal figure mentioned in all the books. This was long before the population explosion in Sydney. Gockie was still in school when I was reading RDPD and the first of Steve McKnight's books.

At NL they are currently building several identical townhouses between the lake and the commercial centre. This would affect the advertised rates for both sales and rentals. IIRC the land set aside for individual houses is all full.

In my experience, if you own an attractive appealing place it will rent ahead of a cookie-cutter place any day.

 

The vacancy rates is a very misleading figure as it incorporated all units / apartments / th / houses and what not.

 

Can't disagree here!

 

Ps. I love learning, digesting and analysing comments from more experienced folk. I've hit middle age myself now... started with my first property just over 10 years ago now.
Nothing happened for the first few years for me then the boom came...

Great thing is, we can all learn so quickly from each other from a forum like this. So easy as long as you take some action to educate yourself...