Tuesday, December 03, 2024

Month: June 2023

Converting Offices to Apartments: Theory vs. Reality

Converting Office Buildings into Apartments: A Solution to Australia’s Housing Crisis?

Australia is currently facing a housing crisis, with skyrocketing prices and a shortage of affordable housing. At the same time, the pandemic has caused a shift in the workplace, leaving many office buildings in major cities underused. As a result, the idea of converting these offices into apartments has been floated as a potential solution. While this is not a new idea, it has been done before in Australia, and it is a hot topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum.

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One-In-Six Australians Live In Apartments & Townhouses

  • A new report found up to 26% of Australians could be living in strata-titled properties
  • There has been a 7% growth of strata-titled properties in the last two years
  • This reflects both government policies and people’s current preferences

At least one in six Australians are living in strata titled properties such as apartments and townhouses and there’s been a 7% growth in the number of properties in the last two years, according to a new report from the University of New South Wales.

Professor Hazel Easthope, who led the research project team at UNSW, says both Australia and New Zealand have seen rapid growth in strata-titled dwellings in the last two years.

She adds strata-title property ownership began in Australia in the 1960s and has since become an important feature of the housing landscape across Australia.

Young Aussie Calls Out Major Housing Myth Spread By Baby Boomers

A young influencer is challenging baby boomers who suggest ‘lazy young people sipping lattes’ could buy a house like they did 40 years ago.

Jack Toohey has made A video breaking down the differences between buying a home in 1983 and 2023.

Baby boomers are often fond of reminding the young how they paid 18 per cent interest rates in the 1980s, but they fail to mention that typical house price compared with average incomes were significantly cheaper when they bought four decades ago.

Toohey has demolished their misleading claims and misinformation with facts and figures comparing real estate values and earnings.

‘It’s bleak’: Why you might be struggling to keep pace with rent rises

“It’s pretty bleak. It doesn’t seem anything in the short term will be improving…”
– Westpac senior economist, Matthew Hassan.

Apartment rents across Australia have increased six times faster than wages and house rents have climbed at triple the rate, leaving many tenants struggling to make ends meet.

Median weekly asking rents for apartments in the capital cities rose 22.2 per cent over the year to March, Domain data shows, while wages rose just 3.7 per cent over the year, the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

Unit rents increased more than six times faster in Sydney and Melbourne, where the medians jumped by 24 per cent and 23.1 per cent respectively, to $620 and $480 per week.

Median house rents rose 13 per cent across the combined capital cities. Perth had the largest increase at 14.6 per cent, while asking rents rose 10 per cent in Sydney, 11.1 per cent in Melbourne and 12 per cent in Brisbane.