Palatial apartments almost 10km from Brisbane’s CBD are proving the most valuable property commodity in the river city.
Prices for apartments on the Brisbane River at southside Tennyson soared 121 per cent to $1.12 million in the past year based on 26 sales — most of them in the one development.
The result has made Tennyson the city’s best suburb in which to own an apartment, in defiance of a citywide price fall in the unit market because of oversupply issues.
It was also the only suburb to register average prices of more than a million, according to data provided by property analysts Place Advisory.
A distant second was Bulimba with a median price of $610,000 across 100 sales, then Bardon, which averaged $603,000 over 41 sales, and Teneriffe with a median price of $590,250 across 176 sales.
Tennyson Reach sales executive Christine Crozier said as well as being on the river, the development’s apartments were “house-sized”, which appealed to residents.
“We attract people from the local area, from Chelmer, Indooroopilly as well as Yeronga and the inner southside suburbs,” Ms Crozier said.
“We’re a different kind of stock to the (apartments) that are oversupplied. Our tiniest one is 133sq m, and our biggest penthouses are just massive.”
Despite the seven-figure sums being paid for many of the apartments, Ms Crozier said resale prices were strong.
“I think we’ve held our own, we’ve got some really good prices recently,” she said.
Jack Howlett and wife Glenys admitted being a bit apprehensive about making the switch to apartment living after years in a large family home at Coorparoo.
“When we started looking in (the inner city suburbs) of West End and Hamilton, I realised how few apartments of this sort of specification there were,” Mr Howlett said.
“Everything we looked at had no living space, and then we came out here and thought ‘wow’. There’s not an oversupply of these sort of apartments.”
Rob and Julie Brown had a similar epiphany after selling their five-bedroom home at Toowong.
“The units are like small homes but they’re on one level,” Mrs Brown said.
“We took a while to make the decision and I was a bit scared about not having a garden but you can do a bit of gardening here.”
She said what was initially intended as a “five-year proposition” was likely to extend well beyond that. “I don’t think we’ll move again.”
Downward pressure on unit prices across Brisbane was of no concern to the Browns and Howletts. “Three-bedroom apartments are pretty immune from that,” Mrs Brown said. “There’s nothing like this around.”
The research director for Place Advisory, Lachlan Walker, said the Tennyson experience highlighted the importance of a “point of difference” in the crowded apartment market.
“If it was another suburb in the inner Brisbane marketplace you wouldn’t notice that bigger difference in median price, but because it is a middle ring suburb and it’s gone really well, it just shows that people are willing to pay a little bit more if it’s good property,” Mr Walker said.
“There’s that value proposition if it’s a little bit different to the run-of-the-mill smaller apartments we’ve seen developed in recent times.”
Ms Crozier said the area was proving so popular that she had a “waiting list” for apartments, particularly penthouses.
“Unfortunately some of the people waiting are going to be waiting for a while,” she said.
“We’ve got people moving into a rental property here and waiting for something to come up to buy.
“Occasionally those that are put up for sale are residents moving to another apartment in the complex.”
Originally Published: www.theaustralian.com.au