"It's like musical chairs": How expectation management has kept the Brisbane off the plan market ticking

The recent hikes in interest rates has kept everyone guessing month on month.

Ryan Middlemas, Managing Director at Brisbane-based Carrick Developments, says property buyers had become used to having many properties on the market and cheap and easy finance available.  As interest rates rose rapidly and many vendors held properties off the market, both of those factors changed. The quick succession of rate rises was "like a game of musical chairs." as buyers were forced to rapidly adjust their expectations.

"When the music stops, you end up on whatever chair you end up on," Middlemas says.

While many prospective purchasers have seen their serviceability and budgets decrease since the RBA started hiking rates over 12 months ago, Middlemas says ultimately, people still want to buy property.

"People have still made the decision to buy, and while they now can't necessarily afford what they could 12 months ago, their circumstances and appetite to buy generally hasn't changed.

"Buyers maybe take a few months to adjust their expectations. Initially they're saying to themselves 'I could have previously afforded X and I don’t want to compromise, but after a few months, they just accept the new normal and get on with it."

Middlemas says they're seeing a different cohort of buyers because of the rate rises.

"It's almost the opposite of a bracket creep," Middlemas says.

"While many developers feared there would no longer be buyers for their product, from our point of view, it's just a different cohort of people who will be the buyers. They were maybe looking at buying a house 12 months ago, but now their budget only extends to an apartment. They've had to change their expectations. Although it is a different buyer than it might have been previously, the raw number of buyers is relatively unchanged."

Carrick Developments will begin construction on their Indooroopilly project Natura in August 2023. Securing a builder for the project at a workable price had its challenges given conditions in the South East Queensland construction industry.

"It's been a long road like a lot of projects in Brisbane," Middlemas said, noting the dynamic shift in trying to find a builder.

"The construction industry is still operating well beyond capacity.  Larger builders are typically not accepting new work, and in any case you have to query how much exposure they still have behind the scenes to unprofitable projects priced prior to the big spike in construction cost, though we are probably past the worst of it. Some smaller builders are stepping into the mid-tier space."

He said previously a developer would have been able to shop around for a builder, creating a shortlist of three then going through a tender process to select one.

"Builders typically refuse to participate in tenders now," Middlemas says.

"If they're not the only one looking at it, they're not going to bother. So now instead of going to three you have to go to one, and if that one doesn't work out, you have to start the whole process again with the next builder."

Middlemas has appointed Cule Constructions to build Natura, following a successful collaboration at Carrick’s Bellevue Clayfield project.

Carrick has hit its pre sales milestones at the project of 35 apartments, and Middlemas expects that when construction has commenced, the remaining apartments will be quickly snapped up.

"What we’re seeing is that few projects are getting more than a quarter or so into their build without being sold out," Middlemas says.

"Whatever you've got left when the cranes go up is going to fly out of the door in a couple of months, as buyers then have the confidence that the project is definitely happening."

Carrick is working on amalgamating a site in Labrador on the Gold Coast for a higher density project in the near future, and will shortly submit a development application for 62 apartments in Brisbane’s Upper Mount Gravatt.

"Brisbane will produce roughly half the number of apartments per year in the next two years as it did in the years prior to Covid. The supply of new apartments will get worse before it gets better."