The blame game is in full swing and is as hotly contested as a grand final, with interest rates, stamp duty, tax changes and superfund savings all contenders for the reason people can’t afford to live where they want.

This is all in the  latest news – the usual curated feed –  from Leftfield Communications

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Domain

Brisbane 2032: What the Olympic Games means for property investors
The Brisbane 2032 master plan, unveiled in detail in August with a sports and entertainment precinct around a proposed $3.8 billion stadium, was expected to draw investors in.

Rate hike double blow threatens bigger home price slump
Mortgage-holders face up to three more rate rises that could push lending costs to an 18-year high and deepen the house price downturn already weighed down by budget tax reforms.

Capital gains tax changes 2027: Why property investors should get a valuation before July 1
Property investors should get a valuation before July 1 ahead of the 2027 capital gains tax changes, with valuer Anna Porter Primmer saying careful preparation now could protect years of hard-won growth once the reforms change how the tax is calculated.

Sydney auction results: Drummoyne apartment sells for $2.161 million
Sydney’s clearance rate has dipped to its lowest since early August, though pockets of fierce competition remain, with a retro Drummoyne apartment with Harbour Bridge views selling $311,000 above reserve to a downsizer for $2.161 million.

Everyone talks about the ‘missing middle’ – this is what it looks like
An unlikely village is taking shape amid the high-rises of Waterloo, with four medium-rise buildings of five to seven storeys grouped around a central precinct held up by developer Barings as an exemplar of doing the missing middle the right way.

Siblings eye mega deal for apartment complex built by parents
Three siblings are set to cash in on a mega deal after listing a Brisbane apartment complex and century-old homestead together, with the 2,500-square-metre Wooloowin corner block holding a 138-year-old Queenslander on the same title as the units.

Court approves 12-month extension to Bathla Group administrator
The NSW Supreme Court has granted Bathla’s voluntary administration a 12-month extension, with Teneo’s Stephen Longley saying the administration will now continue until 13 September 2027.

ABC Online

Andrew Bragg re-ignites super debate by floating ideas to lift home ownership
Andrew Bragg has reignited the super debate by floating ideas to lift home ownership, with the Coalition weighing letting people use super as collateral or withdraw a sum for a deposit, as Labor attacks a One Nation early-access policy.

Stamp duty keeping Australians in homes that no longer suit their needs
Stamp duty is keeping older Australians in homes that no longer suit them, with couples like Michael and Leisa McLennan put off downsizing by the fees, and planners pointing to a lack of suburban housing diversity.

Owners of units in Jean Nassif’s dodgy Sydney developments fear little consequence from ICAC probe
Owners of units in Jean Nassif’s defective Sydney developments fear little will come of the ICAC probe, with buyers like Michael Jones financially trapped by major structural defects in Toplace’s Vicinity complex.

Inside the mammoth task that could keep Bathla in administration for another year
Bathla’s administrators have up to another year to run the voluntary administration, with the company’s bank accounts unreconciled for some time and possibly containing about $736 million in overstated inter-company receivables and payables.

Housing policy is focused on affordability — but is community built by homes alone?
Australians are living closer together yet feeling further apart, in a look at whether the housing policy focus on high-density affordability can build community, set against research showing more than half of Australians feel some social disconnection.

Realestate.com.au

Major banks shock double rate hikes ahead of RBA
Two of the biggest banks have imposed double rate hikes within days of each other ahead of the RBA, with the Commonwealth Bank following Westpac as ANZ projects rates could reach GFC-era highs before Christmas.

AC/DC widow splashes $30m on Ode Double Bay apartments
AC/DC legend Malcolm Young’s widow Linda has spent $30 million on two apartments in the soon-to-complete luxury Double Bay block Ode, on top of $19 million on a Mosman apartment, in the Luigi Rosselli-designed project by Top Spring Australia.

Fairland’s $17.5m Kidman Park apartments flying off the market
More than a third of the apartments at Fairland’s $17.5 million Canopy development at Kidman Park have sold within a month of listing with unprecedented demand bringing forward construction on the affordable Adelaide project.

SA seeks public input on short stay accommodation register
South Australia is seeking public input on a planned short-stay accommodation register, with consultation running to October 30 to shape the scheme and possible codes of conduct to curb issues such as noise.

New Victorian auction and set-date laws, what sellers need to know
Victorian sellers face new auction and set-date laws from next week, with industry groups warning government delays in releasing key details, including mandatory documents and price-setting rules, have left sellers in an unfair position this spring.

Victoria warned of biggest hit from negative gearing overhaul
Victoria faces what property leaders warn could be the nation’s biggest blow from restricting negative gearing to new builds, with ATO data showing the state’s rental properties swung to a collective $2.53 billion loss, the country’s negative-gearing capital.

Queensland suburb shoots past $20k for a single square metre of unit space
A unit square metre now tops $20,000 in Queensland’s most expensive suburb, with REA Group data showing Noosa Heads commanding the premium for water views as Brisbane’s house price per square metre rose 14.4 per cent over the year.

Queensland landlords face $593 million black hole sparking mass property sell-off
Queensland landlords have plunged into a $593 million black hole as rate rises wipe out returns ahead of the tax crackdown, with 54.2 per cent of Australian landlords recording a net rental loss in 2023-24, the highest share since 2019-20.

Urban Developer – Partly Free

Wafer-Thin Scheme Stacks Up Apartments on Gold Coast Island
A Gold Coast tower proposal would stack 20 storeys of luxury apartments on a site just 8.59 metres wide, narrower than a singles tennis court, the wafer-thin scheme designed around a tight 506-square-metre Chevron Island parcel at 7 Anembo Street.

Henroth Goes Vertical with Plans for Seniors Living at Chatswood
Henroth Group has filed plans for a 22-storey seniors living tower at Chatswood, with 140 units, 10 per cent of them affordable, atop a three-level sandstone podium less than 500 metres from Chatswood station.

Townhouse, Unit Scheme at WA Boomtown Wanneroo Awaits its Fate
Perth developer Claymont is awaiting the verdict on its $63 million apartment and townhouse project overlooking the Indian Ocean at Jindalee, with upper floors of the seven-storey building offering ocean views in the city’s far north.

The Builder Question Developers Just Can’t Afford to Get Wrong
Attracting and keeping the right builder is critical at a minimum $5,000 a square metre to build an apartment, with Infinitec’s Paul Cavallucci arguing the industry must be smarter about productivity gains and working with builders.

Spyre Reveals Dramatic Modernist Project for Indooroopilly Riverbank
Spyre Group has lodged plans for a dramatic modernist project cantilevering over the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, with eight ultra-luxury apartments across six levels and green-pigmented concrete terraces on a steep 2,181-square-metre site.

SA Partners Reveal Latest Scheme for Victor Harbour’s Anchorage Site
South Australian companies Westside Constructions and John Seymour Consolidated have formed a joint venture for a $110 million redevelopment of Victor Harbor’s Anchorage site, with 45 apartments, 63 hotel rooms and a restaurant planned on the Fleurieu waterfront.

Level 33 Puts Forward Multi-Tower Precincts at Kellyville, Wollongong
Level 33 has revealed strikingly similar multi-tower proposals for Kellyville and Wollongong, including a $394 million, four-tower scheme of 23 to 39 storeys on a 2.1-hectare site near Kellyville metro station in Sydney’s north-west.

Deluca Secures Green Light for Height-Limit-Topping Albion Plan
Deluca Corporation has won approval for a 13-storey, 88-apartment tower at Albion on Brisbane’s northside, the Architectus-designed scheme with a rooftop deck and ground-level co-working space near the train station.

Traders in Purple Wins Hard-Fought Approval for Pymble Project
Traders in Purple has won a hard-fought approval for a 76-apartment scheme beside Pymble Golf Club on Sydney’s North Shore, with the $92 million project cleared by the Land and Environment Court after earlier refusals.

Qld’s Rework of Bowen Hills PDA Adds 50-Storey Skyscrapers to Mix
Proposed changes to the Bowen Hills Priority Development Area could enable up to 27,000 homes, adding about 4,000 to the 23,000 already planned and allowing buildings of up to 50 storeys on larger inner-Brisbane sites.

Leyton’s North Adelaide Scheme Passes Six-Storey Heritage Test
Leyton Property has won approval for the tallest building on the northern side of North Adelaide’s Melbourne Street, a six-storey scheme cleared after an extended assessment and a court appeal.

Apartments.com.au

Albero Property plans 33 apartments for prominent Hawthorn East corner
Albero Property has filed plans for 33 large-format apartments on a prominent Hawthorn East corner, with Ewert Leaf designing the scheme for the 1,492-square-metre Riversdale Road site opposite the Hawthorn Community Gardens.

VIMG gets green light for 193-apartment Nelson Place in Chatswood
Melbourne developer VIMG has won approval for its 193-apartment Nelson Place development in Chatswood, more than three years after first filing plans for the site about 500 metres from the transport interchange.

Focus Group Investments secures fast-track approval for SJB-designed Fitzroy apartments
Focus Group Investments has secured fast-tracked ministerial approval for a 63-apartment project in Fitzroy, just months after lodging the SJB-designed Hanover Street scheme through Victoria’s Great Design Fast Track pathway.

Pay-walled

The Australian Financial Review

Data centre developers feel the heat in Sydney’s north shore
Data centre developers got a first-hand taste of local opposition at a fiery Senate inquiry hearing on Tuesday, with the builder of a planned $1.2 billion facility on Sydney’s north shore conceding it would sit within 16 metres of homes.

Bathla’s two-decade bank blacklist raises questions for private credit
Failed Sydney developer Bathla was blacklisted by banks including ING almost two decades ago after it tried to sign up refugees to mortgages they could not afford to service, the AFR reports.

Home buyer hopefuls tap low-deposit loans as times get tighter
Borrowers who cannot clear the banks’ hurdles are increasingly turning to shared equity schemes and low or no-deposit arrangements, an approach that carries more risk in a falling market.

Buyers agency Dashdot chased customers for services not delivered
National buyers agency Dashdot was likely insolvent while it chased clients for more than $10.5 million in services never delivered, with Teneo liquidators finding the collapsed agency may have been insolvent from as early as June 2024, potentially exposing its founders and directors to compensation claims.

‘One of the worst markets I’ve seen’: Property CEO fears job cuts
Jellis Craig chief executive Andrew McCann, a 30-year veteran, calls it one of the worst markets he has seen, with agents having hard conversations with vendors and job cuts likely if the downturn deepens.

Why 6.5pc is the benchmark for new residential property investors
The budget’s negative gearing and CGT changes have made rental yield more important than ever, with Ray White’s Vanessa Rader pointing to 6.5 per cent as the new benchmark and naming 37 suburbs throwing up opportunities for investors.

ASIC is fed up with dodgy private credit valuations inflating fees
ASIC says it is beyond warnings and ready to sue private credit firms that refuse to write down distressed loans to inflate fees, with commissioner Simone Constant singling out western Sydney, ground zero for the Bathla collapse likely to leave lenders with heavy losses.

Leaked NSW inquiry says PEXA and banks deliberately hinder competition
A NSW parliamentary inquiry is expected to find that PEXA and the major banks deliberately hindered efforts to open the property title-transfer system to competition, according to a draft report probing attempts to let ASX-backed rival Sympli access PEXA’s systems.

Bathla administrators find $700m hole in failed developer’s accounts
Bathla’s administrators are reviewing more than $700 million in unreconciled transactions between the collapsed developer’s companies, as Teneo wades through dozens of court claims and largely incomplete accounts while still seeking long-term funding.

The Australian

Meriton changes its Gold Coast apartments as buyers look for cheaper property
Major developers are reconfiguring off-the-plan apartments as the budget’s tax changes bite, with Meriton altering its Gold Coast unit mixes toward cheaper stock after noticing stronger demand for affordable apartments and softer demand at the top end.

Collapsed builder Bathla’s flagship Rouse Hill development gets green light for settlements
Bathla’s flagship Rouse Hill development, Sanctuary Quarter, has received its occupation certificate, clearing the way for settlements including inked pre-sales, with lender Centuria Bass, which has a $278 million exposure to the collapsed builder, confirming the milestone.

South Hedland neighbours ignored by housing officials despite 50 police callouts to squalid home
Neighbours say housing officials ignored a squalid South Hedland home despite more than 50 police callouts this year, the WA Department of Housing telling a resident it could not find enough evidence of disruptive behaviour by the abandoned children living there unsupervised.

Data centres forced to ‘power themselves’ under tough new Victorian rules
New Victorian data centres will have to secure their own renewable energy, pay the full grid-connection cost and stay out of residential areas under what the Carroll government calls the country’s toughest rules, in a Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan responding to community unease.

The steel trap: How Sanjeev Gupta’s house of cards is falling on Australia’s housing dream
Besieged British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta’s InfraBuild is trying to convince Australia’s anti-dumping regulator the country has surplus steel mesh so Chinese imports can be blocked, though builders say there are desperate shortages already holding up construction and lifting prices.

Bathla administrators delay creditors meeting as funding lifeline secured
Bathla will survive another week after administrators secured $4.7 million in funding from a cohort of lenders, with Teneo’s Stephen Longley in hurried talks to extend a short-term lifeline as the builder scrambles to finish advanced projects.

The Sydney Morning Herald

How much Australian property is overvalued by now
Houses across Australia’s capital cities are overvalued by 38 per cent, new analysis reported by the SMH suggests, pointing to the prospect of further falls in the current downturn.

Jean Nassif told ICAC there were ‘minor defects’. Owners are spending $10 million to fix them
Jean Nassif told ICAC the defects were minor, but owners at his Riviera complex on the Parramatta River are spending $10 million to fix them, from cracked balconies and a leaking fire-sprinkler tank to lifts that stick and indoor cockroaches that wrecked appliances.

Housing and heritage ‘can coexist’ as images reveal how towers would change Woollahra
Planning Minister Paul Scully says housing and heritage can coexist in Woollahra as street-view images reveal how towers of up to 32 and 34 storeys would transform the eastern suburbs under draft plans to add 9,400 homes around Woollahra and Edgecliff stations.

Neighbour pays $1.68m for unit with garage, beating five first home buyers
A three-bedroom art deco apartment in Waverley has been snapped up by an upstairs neighbour for $1.68 million at auction, giving them half the boutique block and one of only two lock-up garages, beating five first-home buyers.

Business founder wants to cut real estate agents out of the rental market
About a third of Australia’s 2.2 million rentals are now leased without an agent, a trend platform RentBetter says is accelerating post-budget as landlords cut costs, with the venture-backed startup raising $5 million to take on the agent-managed model.

Bathla hit with 300 safety breaches in the five years before collapse
Bathla was issued more than 300 SafeWork NSW notices in the five years before its collapse, with 306 improvement, prohibition and penalty notices since January 2021, 59 of them in the past 18 months.

Sydney’s ‘missing middle’ still missing with state woefully behind 112,000 target
The Minns government is well behind its target of 112,000 missing-middle homes by July 2029, with only 3 per cent of DAs approved and about four-fifths of applications going to house renovations rather than the apartments and townhouses the policy was meant to deliver.

Five years, millions of dollars: The battle to fix a defective Sydney building
When Andrew and Lisa Cook moved into their new Baulkham Hills apartment in December 2020, the developer collapsed 23 days later, in the story of a five-year, multimillion-dollar battle to fix serious defects including one labelled a hazard to human life.

The Age

The one choice that can cost Melbourne home buyers an extra $110,000
Melbourne families need an extra $110,000 to upsize from a three-bedroom to a four-bedroom house even amid the downturn, with Domain figures showing the cost of one extra bedroom up $22,000 in a year as owners hesitate to list.

The Brisbane Times

Another luxury tower planned in booming inner-city pocket
Another 20-storey luxury tower is planned for a booming pocket of South Brisbane with 161 units and a rooftop pool proposed at 176-186 Montague Road opposite the soon-to-be-redeveloped Visy site.

The Daily Telegraph

‘Pack up and go’: Soldiers facing eviction from Victoria Barracks before Christmas
The Albanese government will start evicting soldiers from Sydney’s Victoria Barracks from next month, a move before Christmas that has outraged state and federal politicians over the Army’s spiritual home.

Embattled developer Bathla Group avoids collapse after NSW Supreme Court grants 12-month lifeline
Bathla has been thrown a lifeline by the NSW Supreme Court, with administrators Teneo announcing a 12-month extension of the convening period to let the builder complete projects and try to stay afloat.

The Herald Sun

Data centre buffer zone introduced under new laws to protect Victorian homes, schools, childcare centres, and rural areas
Premier Ben Carroll will introduce data centre buffer zones under new laws to protect Victorian homes, schools, childcare centres and rural areas, as anger grows over centres being built in residential Melbourne even as the industry injects billions into the economy.

The Adelaide Advertiser

New Everard Park development plans convert all 75 apartments into affordable housing
A developer has scrapped market-rate homes entirely to make a proposed five-storey Everard Park apartment block fully affordable, with EV Park Developments lodging revised plans for the Unley Council site as unit sizes shrink.

The West Australian

Why it’s not all doom and gloom if you’re still renting in retirement
Renting in retirement is not all doom and gloom, with financial planner Melanie Davies saying non-homeowners with an average super balance, invested wisely, can still enjoy a comfortable retirement despite missing property growth.

Perth housing crisis: Ray White research shows Perth slowest market of any capital city since Federal Budget
Perth, once a blink-and-you-miss-it market, is now the slowest of any capital city, with the median time to sell blowing out 19 days from 31 to 52 between May and August, according to Ray White.

The Illawarra Mercury

Under the hammer: Wollongong apartment clears reserve by $102k
Two bidders exchanged 20 bids for a well-located Wollongong apartment at auction, with the home selling for $102,000 above reserve.

Mega apartment complex could put 800 more cars onto Flinders Street daily
Flinders Street would take more than 800 extra vehicles in peak hour if the old Bunnings site development is approved, with Level 33’s plan for 1,260 units in five towers up to 36 storeys housing about 2,400 people.

New $116m high-rise plan would bring ‘regeneration’ to Warilla, developer says
The push for high-rise is moving south to Lake Illawarra, with Illawarra developer Hartell’s $116 million, three-tower Gateway Warilla proposal of 186 apartments, 29 of them affordable, fast-tracked as State Significant Development.