Lifestyle Properties

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CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said 70 per cent of the best-performing apartment markets are located in lifestyle markets.

CoreLogic found 14 suburbs had seen 20 per cent growth in the past year.

Lennox Head on NSW's north coast topped the list with a 27.6 per cent increase in values.

The next biggest growth in values was in Victoria's Ocean Grove and Torquay, with 26.3 per cent and 25.8 per cent gains respectively.

Gold Coast suburbs Palm Beach, Bilinga, Currumbin and Tugun saw an average growth of 22.8 per cent. 

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There was also strong demand in Brisbane's bayside suburbs Cleveland and Wynnum where apartment values up by 25.1 per cent and 18.6 per cent respectively.

Apartment values in Sydney's northern beaches suburb Avalon rose by 12.9 per cent.

Lawless noted the best-performing apartment markets were located in "lifestyle" markets, including tree change locations such as Bowral and Jindabyne.

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"The common theme for the strength in the unit market is the lifestyle factor, with additional demand from buyers looking for a sea change or tree change, as well as a lift in buyers seeking out holiday homes," he told The Australian Financial Review.

"Units obviously are still underperforming compared to houses but we are seeing some growth returning to the sector.

"I think because we've seen such strong price increases in detached housing, affordability constraints have become more challenging, so it's natural to look towards higher density options."

 
 
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CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said 70 per cent of the best-performing apartment markets are located in lifestyle markets

jchancellor

Lifestyle apartment markets lead recovery: Tim Lawless

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The top five worst residential real estate investment ideas include cruise ship suites, retirement villages, property in mining towns, lifestyle properties and overpriced off the plan apartment developments, according to SQM Research.
SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said the idea of investing on a cruise ship has the downside of not buying on any land at all and boats tend to depreciate rather quickly.
He says he has not seen a single retirement village investment make money for the retiree and likens investing in a retirement village to sucking the financial blood out of poor retirees in their last years of life.
"It is possible to earn a cash-flow from holiday makers (on a cruise ship) but from what I can see, that type of cash flow return needs to be in excess of 10% net just to take into account this real depreciation. And I am not aware of any cruise ship suite offering that type of net rental return," he said.
"The problem with retirement village investment starts with the fact that in most of these properties one is buying into a leasehold arrangement. That’s right, you don’t actually “own” the underlying land.  Often the manager behind these estates has complete control over costs and worse, resales. Often one has to resell back to the manager or at least sell via the manager for which they of course take a generous fee.
"Unless you have trucks of money to spend and just want to be around like minded seniors, do not invest in these 'properties'. You are far, far better off living it up in a hotel!"
Golf course estates, semi-rural lifestyle estates, holiday homes, he said, are aimed towards 'lifestyle,' rather than 'reliable real estate investment', with many overpriced with body corporate fees and other management services fees to match.
Mining town housing markets are the classic one trick pony town markets and completely reliant on one single economic base that may or may not provide stable returns.
Buying overpriced off the plan apartments with top of the line fixtures is problematic as you can pay a premium to enter the market. He said there is a good reason  why the ATO allows for a 2.5% depreciation benefit to these types of properties
"And that’s because they can depreciate," he said. 
Top five worst property investment ideas
1. Cruise ship suites
2. Retirement villages
3. Mining towns
4. Lifestyle properties
5. Overpriced off-the-plan apartment developments
 
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