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Victoria has stopped short of imposing minimum unit sizes as it introduces new apartment standards to improve high rise amenity and access to air and light. The Victorian approach, outlined by state planning minister Richard Wynne, differs from Sydney, which has set minimum sizes for apartments, including 50 square metres for one-bedroom apartments and 70 sqm for two-bedders. Instead, the new Victorian controls, still in draft, require that apartments have enough daylight and ventilation, and set out energy and waste efficiency requirements and noise minimisation measures. Minimum standards The new rules set a minimum standard ceiling height of 2.7 metres. Any habitable room must have direct access to daylight, with the window visible from any point within the room.  “There are a number of apartments that have been built in Melbourne which frankly don’t reach in our view a minimum standard,” Mr Wynne said on Sunday. “Buildings that rely on borrowed light, buildings that have poor ventilation, buildings where you can barely put a double bed into the bedroom: this is not the quality of apartments that we should have.” Mr Wynne’s press conference on the new regime was held at a Lendlease development in Docklands, within a one-bedroom apartment of 48-square metre,…

There are a couple of surprises in the top 10 Brisbane suburbs for million dollar sales this year. Brisbane’s top suburbs for million-dollar-plus sales have been revealed, and Bulimba has been named as No.1. The latest data from Domain, which based the numbers on million-dollar-plus sales recorded so far this year, showed 67 properties worth $1 million or more had been sold in Bulimba. New Farm came in a close second to Bulimba, but suburbs in Brisbane’s eastern corridor dominated the top 10 and included Hawthorne, Coorparoo, Camp Hill and Carindale. Place Bulimba agent Chris Rice said the figures reflected a recent groundswell of interest in Bulimba, particularly from buyers across the river. “There’s been a lot of hype over Bulimba this year and the reasons behind it are solid,” he said. “It’s a value proposition. Bulimba and New Farm might have similar volumes of $1 million-plus sales – but what you get for $1.2 million in each suburb is very different. “Bulimba is still far better value and that’s why we’re seeing so many high-end buyers cross the river to…

A Sydney house bought for $3.85 million two years ago sold for $5.15 million on Saturday as strong demand again outstripped measly supply in weekend auctions. The auction of the four-bedroom home in the non-peninsula section of Hunters Hill set a local record. Nowhere is the supply crunch more apparent than in Sydney, where the volume of properties on the market is down 29 per cent over the 12 months to the end of July. A lack of stock and the location of 35 Bonnefin Road in the non-peninsula part of Hunters Hill were key factors, with the home selling for $750,000 above reserve. “It’s a relatively affordable price for that side of Hunters Hill for a waterfront home,” said Savills agent Adam Ross, who sold the house in conjunction with Bresic Whitney’s Nicholas McEvoy. “The bigger prices tend to be pulled on the peninsula. This a record for the non-peninsula side.” Clearance rates break 80pc In Sydney, the auction clearance rate hit 81.6 per cent, up from last week’s result of  77.5 per cent, according to CoreLogic figures. And while the number of auctions listed crept up to 610, it is only two-thirds the level it was at this time last year. “Toward…

The expansion of the tech sector is making a mark in Melbourne’s CBD office market, where the vacancy rate fell to 7 per cent in the last six months. Improving from 7.8 per cent, Melbourne has the second-lowest vacancy rate among the major markets. In recent deals social media giant Facebook took close to 1000 square metres in Docklands, filling the last remaining space in Cbus Property’s 720 Bourke Street. It joined another tech sector player, Electronic Arts, which has taken 4205 sq m in the same building. Other tech corporates are filling seats in the CBD this year: LinkedIn has taken 1250 sq m; Zendesk, 2300 sq m; Datacom, 1210 sq m; Amazon 1600 sq m and Interactive Data, 843 sq m. There is more to come. Requirements by SEEK, Ericsson and Samsung total around 50,000 sq m. Noting the tech trend, Knight Frank’s Hamish Sutherland said prime incentives had retracted as vacancy hit a four-year low. In some buildings, incentives are in the low 20 per cent range compared to 30 per cent less than a year ago. “Supported by…

Persistently low inflation will force the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut rates twice more in 2017 to 1 per cent, with “the possibility of unconventional monetary policy thereafter”, National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster says. “With inflation forecasts still very low and the RBA showing its hand as a committed ‘inflation targeter’, it is seemingly less worried than we thought about using up some of its valuable remaining monetary policy ammunition, the case for further cuts from the RBA appears to be mounting,” Mr Oster said in a note on Tuesday. The Reserve Bank has cut rates to 1.5 per cent – the lowest in 50 years. Fairfax’s Peter Martin explains why. In its recent quarterly statement, the RBA said it expected inflation to remain below the bottom of its 2-3 per cent target band until mid-2018, despite cutting rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.5 per cent on August 2 – a move NAB’s economics team was not expecting. The central bank also indicated that it believed the risk of runaway house price growth had diminished and…

Follow the below link to know more about the Melbourne CBD $10.9 billion metro tunnel project: http://metrotunnel.vic.gov.au/locations/interactive-map

The Reserve Bank of Australia has cut the official cash rate to an unprecedented 1.5 per cent to maintain downward pressure on the currency and spur sluggish inflation and business investment. As was forecast by most analysts, the board lowered the cash rate by 0.25 of a percentage point from 1.75 per cent on Tuesday.  Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement that “the likelihood of lower interest rates exacerbating risks in the housing market has diminished”. The RBA statement said supervisory measures have strengthened lending standards in the housing market. “Separately, a number of lenders are also taking a more cautious attitude to lending in certain segments. The most recent information suggests that dwelling prices have been rising only moderately over the course of this year, with considerable supply of apartments scheduled to come on stream over the next couple of years, particularly in the eastern capital cities. Growth in lending for housing purposes has slowed a little this year,” the statement says. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia immediately said it would pass on just over half the interest rate…

Victorians were the lucky recipients of a 22.4 per cent rise in the total value of their properties over the past two years and, over a 10-year period, the homes of a select few have trebled, according to the state’s Valuer-General. Every two years the valuer-general takes a snapshot of property values across the state, which are then used by local governments to calculate rates and land taxes. It’s likely that house prices will continue rising in 2016, as improved affordability stimulates a surge in market confidence for both buyers and sellers. Valuation figures released on Thursday show that over the past decade house values in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs have trebled, particularly in Boroondara, Whitehorse and Monash councils where the total value of all residences rose between 160 and 200 per cent over 10 years. They were also the suburbs where values rose most over the past two years. “Monash topped the scales at 39 per cent. In any terms that is a big increase,” valuer-general Robert Marsh said. Booming eastern suburbs prices have been attributed to the area’s popularity…

The Gold Coast residential market is well on the mend after $33 million in prestige homes sold in the past week and foreign buyer inquiries doubled in the past three months. While the city’s recovery had been in motion since the start of the year – after it was flattened by the global financial crisis in 2008 – it received another surge of activity in recent weeks. A week ago businesswoman Mara Spong sold the decadent mansion at 57-59 The Corso, on the Isle of Capri, to Australian residents and business owners Hongbo Li and Liyan Song for $15.5 million. The six-bedroom, six-bathroom, six garage 25,197 sq m property that once hosted American actor Dwayne Johnson is the most expensive home sold since 2009. Luxuries in the house include a butler’s pantry, a billiards den, a gym, a spa and sauna and a theatre. “Business is good, it has been fantastic,” said The Venetian Real Estate’s selling agent Doug Hoang, who sold it in a relatively fast three months. Earlier this week, businessman David Baird offloaded his Cronin Island house at 18-20 Southern Cross Drive for $11 million to Chinese buyers linked to developer Golden Horse, which is building apartments in Sydney. Mr Baird then paid $7 million…