Brisbane: Ascot is no longer a $1 million suburb, but real estate agents say it will not stay that way.
The suburb had the biggest drop in median house prices in the inner north from the December to the March quarter, with a price of $785,000.
Real Estate Institute of Queensland figures showed the median price at Ascot for the 12 months ending on March 31 was $877,500.
It was the only suburb in the inner north to lose ground during the 12-month period, with a drop of 6.4 per cent.
But real estate agents said houses above the $1 million mark were still selling well and Ascot would recover.
Century 21 City Northside principal Sam Raiti said interest rate rises were impacting low-income earners more than those in the market for prestige property.
“Certainly the battlers are doing it tough, but properties at the high end are still moving,” Mr Raiti said.
RE/MAX Integrity’s Nerina Sportelli agreed first home buyers were hit hard.
“First home buyers can borrow less when interest rates go up,” Mrs Sportelli said.
Havig & Jackson Real Estate’s David Havig said properties listed for more than $2 million were still popular.
The “mortgage belt” suburbs, such as Wavell Heights, had slowed, Mr Havig said.
Raine & Horne Clayfield’s Fran Leddick said vendors had to be realistic in pricing their properties.
Source Quest Community News
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Bought a brand new unit in this complex (the big 8-storey blue/white complex opposits Woolloongabba Bus Station), it turned out to be JUST A LEMON. Full of defects not just in my unit but many others, as well as in the common property. The ‘vendor’/'developer’ is not following up with the requests from myself and other unit owners to fix the defects/problems, even that it is clearly their responsibility under the property purchase contract.
Many owners found that the electricity main for their units was not turned on at the switchboard, after settlement. If you call Energex they would say it should be on according to their records. Owners then had no choice but had to pay someone (either Energex or other licensed electricians) to come to the building and switch it on. I leant this issue prior to settlement of my unit. So on settlement day for my purchase, I said I would not to pay the balance money if they didn’t switch the electricity on for my unit, and I luckily won. After I moved in, another owner told me that she moved in and found that there was no electricity, and had to use candles for a few days until she could get the main in the switchboard turned on by someone at her own cost. She was in tears for a few days while living in candle light.
Regarding other defects, many owners had to, again, pay with their own money to engage tradies to fix them because the ‘developer’ would not rectify them, and in many instances would not even respond to phone messages and emails from the owners. Now the security intercom system for the whole building is still not working, nearly three months after settlement of the first unit in this building. Physical phone lines to my unit are not connected, despite there are sockets on the walls. (my neighbour had the same problem and had to pay Telstra $160 to fix). When you buy a new property, the builder should have installed all utility infrastructure including the physical phone line between the house and the outside world (it’s part of the construction works!), and all you need to do is to call Telstra, Optus or any other phone company to establish an account so you could make charged calls. Everyone has been stressed and is so sick of the problems. There are altogether 270 units in this development! More than 200 set of owners cheated by the developers (to date, some 40 units are still unsold).
Company searches revealed that the joint ‘developers’/'vendors’ (three of them) are all shell companies, each with a few dollars of capital. Directors of these companies are mostly in New Zealand and one in the U.S. The design architect for the development was a director of one of these companies, but he has pulled himself out of it some time ago, and set up another company which became the ‘project manager’. However the architect was again not taking any responsibility even when I spoke with him directly. How could it be ‘not his problem’ when he is the director of the company who is the ‘project manager’ for the development?
Now I have no choice but have to lodge a civil case to the court for their not complying with the terms of the property purchase contract, and complaints to the BSA, AIA, Board of Architects, etc. for their incompetence and failure to comply with their Professional codes of conduct. Hopefully it won’t be too long before the statutory authorities hand down judgements forcing the developer to comply and fix all problems.
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