Why Invest in Ipswich

IPSWICH"S pride shone like a beacon from the Growth Summit after the city was crowned champion of Queensland’s population growth.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show Ipswich has the state’s fastest-growing population over the past year with 5 per cent.

That equates to an extra 7700 people calling Ipswich home,

“With two universities and the Amberley RAAF Base’s $ 770 million expansion and the 350 hectare 1 Billion Dollar Citiswich Business Park development going on.

Ipswich is a town to be reckoned with and now with the Ipswich Motorway’s
3 Billion dollar upgrade well and truly under way there is no impediment to the growth of this town.

There will be nearly 3000 people moving to work at the Amberley RAAF Base as the expansion nears completion in 2010 and 2011.

The Queensland Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan projects Ipswich’s population will grow to 318000 by 2026 the population stands at approx a little bit over 150,000 so the future for this city is very strong.

The Investment in the over all region is continuing to grow with the Gatton prison being the latest project to get under way.

Late last year the State Government revealed the farming community would host Queensland’s newest prison, a $500 million state-of-the-art high-security facility.The total investment in this project is thought to be upwards of $ 2 billion dollars

Stage One will be complete by 2010 and Premier Anna Bligh said the chosen site could eventually house up to five correctional facilities and 3000 inmates by 2016 and will see employment of up 1800 people.

Hot Spot Growth Corridor

Coomera population to triple by 2015

The new Massive Super Shopping centre for Coomera and Upper Coomera marking the start of the northern growth corridor, which extends to the outskirts of Brisbane it is no wonder it is one of the strongest growth suburbs in the Gold Coast region and is expected to continue to develop from mainly rural to urban in the future.

With the area offering a relaxed country lifestyle yet having three of Australia’s major theme parks, Dreamworld, Movie World and Wet n Wild and a major marine industry precinct already established on the banks of the Coomera river to be enjoyed.

The Gold Coast property market having enjoyed unprecedented capitol growth in recent years the growth and demand for rentals in great news for all investors as vacancies are at a low and will continue to stay that way due to the dramatic increases in the Gold Coast population occurring year round.

Current trends indicate that the Gold Cost population will double to one million by 2040.
Coomera will be a big part of that increase.

Property Hot Spot Upper Coomera

New community planned for Willow Vale.

A former horse stud in Willow Vale once owned by the late Russ Hinze a former Queensland polition is being transformed into a $160 million masterplannes community by Devine Communities.
A development application has been lodged with the Gold Coast City Council for the proposed new residential estate, Waverly Park.
The estate will be built on two parcels of land which is currently in the process of being aquired by Devine Communities for 22 million dollars.
338 residential lots will be featured with a mix of terraced and detached housing.
Terrace house lots will range from 200sq m and residential lots up to 700sq m.
A large park will be fronting Hotham Creek.
A range of environmentally sustainable features will be included with extensive landscaping and revegitation planned for the natural waterways from Waverlerly park one end down to Hotham Creek.
Devine Communities is obviously excited with this new development at Waverly Park as this will enhance the local neigbourhood with residents enjoying the landscaped parks barbeque and playgroumds as well as paths for pedestrians and bikeways.
Being only 7 kilometres from Commera Railway Station and close to the planned Pimpama Station.
Waverly Park is an exciting new development for the area. 

The next mining boom
Located approximately 550km north of Brisbane and 100km south of Rockhampton in

the mid-north coast of Queensland,Gladstone. According to Flynn De Freitas, principal of

Omega Investments, G is fast becoming Australia’s top mining boom town.Massive plans

and committed infrastructure projects at various stages of commencement are attributing

to this success.
A summary published in the December 2009 Your Investment Property magazine is set

out below:

Infrastructure spotting

Investors and developers are infrastructure spotting when they ‘deliberately invest’ in a

small town with an impending billion-dollar or larger local infrastructure project. In Australia,

these projects are fuelled by the demand for commodities by the booming Chinese and

Asian economies and linked to Australia’s status as one of the world’s leading suppliers of

natural resources. Mining and energy companies involved in these projects are committed

to extract, transport, refine and ship an ever increasing volume of resources within these

small towns. As a result, these energy companies are committed to build new mines or

gas platforms, railways or pipelines, refineries and ports to fulfil these investment

commitments. The common threads among all these large infrastructure projects are:

Massive cash investments by mining and energy companies into the local economy of the

small towns;
Thousands of new workers with $100,000 plus wages being deployed to these projects;
A shortage of local housing to accommodate this sudden surge in housing demand;
Experienced investors who have done their research on previous property boom as a

result of large infrastructure projects and are looking to invest in impending boom towns

before others realise the opportunities and eventual benefits of the projects.

From the chart above, it is obvious that Gladstone’s main natural resource in the future

would be concentrated on Liquefied Natural Gas  (LNG). Out of the total of A$66.4 billion

dollars worth of infrastructure projects, $51.8 billion or 78% of the projects are LNG

related. By far the largest project involves a joint-venture between the third largest

integrated energy company in the US, Conocco Phillips withOrigin Energy in the A$35 billion

Australian Pacific LNG project.

The 3 biggest infrastructure projects are all LNG related which involve some of Australia’s

largest energy and resources organisations such as BG Group, Origin Energy and Santos.

The A$7.7 billion Gladstone LNG project is a joint-venture between Santos and Malaysian

petroleum giant Petronas.

de Freitas believes there are 4 important criteria which identifies booming infrastructure

towns in Australia:

1. Population of less than 30,000

Infrastructure towns have to small with a population of less than 30,000. This dynamic

ensures the project will fundamentally and permanently change the demographic and

economic conditions. Larger towns do not feel the impact of the project on residential

housing demand as much as smaller ones. As a result, rental yields and capital growth may

be less significant. Gladstone’s population is approximately 30,000 and the migration of

new workers as a result of the projects will satisfy this criteria.

2. Project value of A$1 billion or more

Large projects of A$1 billion or more are required to create the impact on local housing

yields and value. Gladstone’s planned and committed projects have a total value of more

than A$66 billion as shown above.

3. Large peak workforce

The projects’ peak workforce needs to be between 5 – 10% of the town’s normal

population to create an impact on rents as the workers move into town. In this case, the

peak workforce of the planned and committed projects of Gladstone is 21,400 compared

to its population of 30,000, ie a peal workforce on population ratio of 71%.

4. Approved project status

The projects must have achieved ‘approved’ status formally granted by the State and

Federal governments. This occurs in the last phase of the ‘feasibility stage’ of the

infrastructure spotting cycle. When all the environmental and government approvals are

granted, the final endorsement is by the Financial Investment Decision (FID) where the

project is then classified as ‘confirmed’. This is the stage where house prices can surge

between 10 – 20% as a result of investors jumping onto the bandwagon. Five of

Gladstone’s infrastructure projects have received full approvals or entered into the

‘confirmed’ or ‘commenced’ phase while numerous other projects have also submitted

their Environmental Impact Statements and are now awaiting government approvals, so

they can proceed to FID endorsement.

Gladstone currently has 15 infrastructure projects totalling A$66 billion at various stages of

approval and commencement.

Before recommending a property or an area to a client I like to visit and do my own research. I had heard some mixed reports about Gladstone. But after a tour with local building veteran Roy Atkinson I started to have the revelation that this was one of the strong economic areas in Australia.

Roy shared with me his building experiences spanning over 30 years and his rocket ride to multi-millionaire status in the last few years by simply building spec homes and holding them. We spent most of the day on a tour around the city and neighbouring communities such as Cutis Island, Calliope and Tannum Sands.

The statistics show why Roy has been so successful with his investing. The medium price for houses in Gladstone 2001 was $110,000. Just five years later the median price was $344,000. That’s an average annual growth of an amazing 25.6% (PRD Nationwide). The first quarter this year shows the median price at $380,000. There is some speculation that the ride is over for people investing in Gladstone. However, I beg to differ! With record low vacancy rates and new employment opportunities coupled with a shortage of available housing stacks up to an unprecedented opportunity.

I don’t believe I am alone in my opinion. Michael Addison wrote recently in the Investment Property Reporter (p16, vol 36, 2009) about the massive investment into the local economy. Currently there is an amount of $20 billion being spent on the infrastructure of this tiny town of 67000 people. This spend will go towards the following –

· Liquid natural gas drilling

· Construction: – pipelines, factories, rail lines, gas and coal leaders.

· New shale oil projects

“Think about the impact of $20 billion dollars (that’s $20,000,000,000) spent in a region with a current population of just 67000; that’s $289,855 for each man, woman and child” A figure as large as 20 billion sounds impressive – but when both government spending and private spending are put together it totals over $34 billion that will be spent in the region (QLD Government Dept. Infrastructure and Planning). Part 2 will be posted this week.

A lot of people are asking what will happen in 2010 with the Australian economy that is a very good question.This is just a small part of what I see happening because of all of the stimulus programs around the world. We are going to see a return of inflation and when inflation is on the increase then this will be followed by an increase in interest rates which is what we are already starting to see happening here in Australia.

We are the first country in the world to increase interest rate which has happened in 2 straight months with talk of more rates to follow next year.Consumer confidence dropped in the month of November by 2.4 % that is a direct response to increasing interest rates to soon.Keep an eye on what is happening in the USA they are still 1/3 of the worlds GDP so a the rest of the world still rely on selling their products to the USA. America is still contracting in their economy and this still will reflect on the rest of the world.

It is time to develop a life style of debt reduction most people in the property market are always trying to talk the market up just so they can make a sale.I am also a Property Agent I have lived threw a number of recessions and when the economy is not going so well it can be very tough to keep our heads above water when we have to much debt.This can put a lot of pressure on the family and is the main reason for a break down in the family unit.

Parents divorce and children are caught in the middle of a break down of their once loving family environment and it goes on all because of Debt.Just remember this Global Economic problem is not over yet so don’t live beyond your income learn to live on less than you earn.Do this in the good times and the bad times and work towards being debt Free 

Throughout my life I have been very interested in housing and niche property developing. Houses are great because they serve people over their lifetimes, giving shelter, one of humanities most important needs. I noticed property people were successful, they had the latest cars, nice houses, worked from their homes and seemed to be very happy.

Their children went to good schools and they talked about there next overseas holiday, these were the things that I only dreamed about. I watched my dad in building our family home in the Gold Coast Hinterland, doing most of the work himself.

Learning from this, I later built two homes the same way using these niche property developing skills, one for myself and one for my sister, saving thousands of dollars. Back in 1990 My own home overlooked the lights of Surfers Paradise, the home cost $40,000 to build and the land was $30,000 a total of $70,000 for the home and land.  About two years later I sold the home for $175,000 taking a fantastic profit and from that point on I was hooked, never lost sight of the fantastic opportunity that Niche Property Developing can be.

I suppose that the industry just rubbed off on me because of my circumstances, realizing that not all people can have the same experiences.

You will find in this book the inside knowledge and methods for making money by Niche Property Developing. This information I have learned the hard way experimenting and testing all through my career.  My building company has over the years been involved in thousands of new home construction projects, won lots of building awards and is currently in the top 10 building companies in our country.  Our clients range from new home buyers to major investment property groups.

The following book has been prepared as a guide and reference of my experience , Niche Property Developing over the years.  It is my goal to pass over to you all the knowledge necessary to allow you to be successful in Niche Property Developing.

Its well documented that residential property is by far  the best investment even banks  know this that’s why they will lend you up to 90% or more of the purchase price . If you just take a look at the data that comes from research companies in Australia like RP DATA you will see that the biggest industry is the building industry by far and with in that industry the Residential Property is by far the largest. Why is that ? Well there is a number of reasons but the biggest one is we have a population growth that is out stripping supply.

The Australian Government sees this happening so much so they have introduced a new incentive for the investor market called  { NRAS for short } they want up 50,000 houses a year built through this new program. I will be writing about this in next weeks article but in short they are going to give the Investor money to create a positively  geared Investment Property. You have heard the saying that the best Investment is { Brick and Mortar } well I want to add to this and tell you that land is the best investment land appreciates and building depreciates but to give you a return from that property its best to put a house on so you can collect rent and also the deprecation which comes form the tax’s you pay. When looking for an “Investment Property” make sure that in the house and land package that 30% or greater of the price is made up in the land. If you look back over history  you will see that even with the dips in market cycles that property still show’s the best return. The other powerful principle at play when investing in Residential Property is leverage for example if you buy 6 homes over 10 years at 8% capital growth that will equal.

Net Assets $ 3,780,000 with a positive income from rentals of  $109,200 per year. Remember the bank has lent you most of the money to buy these properties so you have also leveraged off the banks as well and the tax man has also helped you out.

Here are some more photos to the last post that just got published .Below you will see earth works happening this is where they are building a new Bunnings and a Aldi store just across the road from a Woolworths shopping centre with about 20 other shops .Just up the road 1km to be exact is a new state school with a new land release just around the corner this is a great place to live its very central to all of the services for the family.

This is an area I have found to fit my criteria for buying an investment property in. It already has a major shopping centre directly across the road with room for expansion they are doing the earth works to build a major Bunning’s store and also an  Aldi store. Just 1 mile up the road is a new state school in fact there is about 4 schools in a 2 mile radius. Around the corner is a small industrial centre and fifteen minutes up the road there is a major industrial centre just of the M1 highway and 40 minutes from this location is the Brisbane CBD.

This area is very sound for the working family that may be looking to rent.Research has found that his type of area people have rented the same property for 10 to 15 years because it is such a well  located area to live for work and schooling.Its a very safe area for child with lots bushland around and parks and just 1 km away is a train station going to Brisbane or Robina.