Property

AS the mercury soared into the 40s last week Perth’s increasing reliance on air-conditioning to cool homes and workplaces became starkly evident.

DECENTRALISATION of tenants to suburban locations and the downsizing in corporate organisations has caused the Perth CBD office market to experience a negative net absorption over the past three years to September 2003.

SPURRED on by widespread residential development, retailers are flocking to the Perth southern suburb of Canning Vale to set up shop.

PERTH property owners are overpricing their properties by up to 10 per cent in the expectation that house prices will rise by over 20 per cent during the coming year, according to Hegney Property Valuations.

NOT-FOR-PROFIT organisation, Activ Foundation, has begun its search for new headquarters to house its central administration operations.

A GROUP of farmers is preparing for the final stage of a 17-year battle with Western Power over compensation for land the utility has taken to carry high voltage power lines.

PERTH’S biggest apartment development, the $300 million Mounts Bay Village complex, may finally be completed after the turmoil following the collapse of HIH in 2001.

RESPONDING to the recent sales success of its first release of apartments in the Allegro residential tower, Mirvac Fini is moving quickly to release the second stage of The Peninsula to the property market and finally begin construction on site.

PETER Laurance’s Pivot Group is poised to start construction on a multi-million dollar office development in West Perth.

“It is a matter of planning and designing the buildings for the nearby activity or any risk.”

A popular development option in other parts of the country, built-form estates are starting to compete with traditional house and land packages in Western Australia, as Tracey Cook reports.

PRIVATELY-OWNED boutique property developer SC Land has released its plans for an exclusive ultra-luxury residential development on a prominent riverside Crawley block, formerly own

THE sudden departure of long-serving Real Estate Institute of WA chief executive Michael Griffiths has sparked a call for a special general meeting of the institute and an explana

AFTER 17 years in the real estate game, most of it selling and leasing homes to overseas business executives and retired couples, a Perth businesswoman is taking a novel approach to business integration.

PROFESSIONAL indemnity insurance has become one of the most expensive forms of cover in the past two years and a major overhead for business.

GANDEL Retail Management is not alone in its wait for a final outcome to its appeal to the Town Planning Tribunal.

AN Australian Bureau of Statistics report on Western Australian Statistical Indicators has forecast continuing strength in the housing sector and revealed the under

THE City of Swan has given the go-ahead to Gandel Retail Management’s proposed $100 million redevelopment of the Midland Gate Shopping Centre.

Amid the continuing heritage debate, recently appointed Heritage Council chairperson Patric de Villiers talks to Tracey Cook and outlines his position on the contro

PERTH’S universities are capitalising on their sizeable land holdings in an effort to remain viable in the increasingly competitive world of tertiary eduction.

THE State Government has provided conditional agreement to purchase failed retirement village project, Shenton Village, out of receivership.

MANDURAH housing estate, Port Bouvard, recently released the first stage of its new multi-million dollar luxury housing development.

WESTERN Australia’s peak property industry group, the Real Estate Institute of WA, expects the State’s real estate market to continue its solid growth throughout 2004 in response to WA’s strengthening economy.

FORCED to wait up to three months for bricks from Perth’s main brick producers, builders are turning to a brick company in the State’s Mid-West to plug some holes in the failing supply chain.

While 2003 may have lacked the wheeling and dealing of previous years, it was a year of consolidation in many market sectors, as Tracey Cook reports.

HOME loan affordability in Western Australia fell by 0.5 per cent for the September 2003 quarter, according to the AMP Banking/REIA Home Loan Affordability Report.

THE master plan for what’s claimed to be one of Australia’s largest industrial redevelopment projects was released for public comment last week.

Design is an important component in the success or otherwise of a retail outlet, as Tracey Cook reports.

COMMERCIAL leasing agents are expecting a positive start to the New Year after what has been a patchy and lacklustre performance for most of 2003.

THE escalation in land prices, reduced availability of indemnity insurance, and regulatory delays at State and local government levels are the major factors behind increasing costs

THE ‘green’ or environmentally sustainable tag has moved beyond a fad in the commercial property industry, with many players now recognising that savvy use of the green badge is beneficial to both business and the environment.

IN a first for Western Australia, the Supreme Court has awarded damages to a plaintiff adversely affected by the creation of a local government’s heritage policy.