Two of Australia’s biggest residential developers have called the bottom of the housing market, saying some life should return to the troubled sector next year. Billionaire apartment developer Harry Triguboff and the listed Mirvac Group said signs of growth in demand were emerging.
Mr Triguboff, founder and owner of Meriton, the country’s biggest apartment builder, completed and sold 1000 apartments this year, well down on the 3000 a year built during the boom in 2002.
While Mr Triguboff said he “always met the market” when conditions cooled, he expected Meriton’s prices to rise 10per cent next year underpinned by the government stimulus, rising rents and the lack of supply.
At yesterday’s annual general meeting for luxury apartment, and house and land developer Mirvac Group, chairman James MacKenzie said the company was starting to see “what we hope are early signs that the residential market, and consequent demand for Mirvac product, being stimulated”, though he was cautious, given the state of the market.
Mirvac and Australia’s other big listed residential developers have been hard hit by the housing, and subsequent economic, downturns.
