Strata Frenzy in Melbourne

It seems that despite a quiet strata development market around Australia Melbourne is entering the frenzy stage.

According to a recent article in the SMH Domain by Simon Johanson called Housing Shortages Fuel Apartment Boom there’s “a building boom in Melbourne's apartment market and it is being driven by changing lifestyles, housing shortages and overseas investors.

Some examples of the frenzy include –

• Several ultra-tall apartment buildings (including Grocon’s 90-storey skyscraper on the former Carlton Brewery site
• 32 of 94 large residential projects planned for the CBD and inner city moved to the construction phase in the past 18 months
• A 586-apartment building beside the Yarra in Richmond  begins construction soon
• Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show a rise of 8.9 per cent in Victoria in the June quarter this year
• More than $5.5 billion of multi-density construction started in Victoria last financial year (mostly in Melbourne) compared with $1.3 billion the year before
• New projects in 2010  had (on average) 150 apartments, whilst in 2008 they had just 61

So, in Melbourne there’s a lot of new apartments being built … and they’re big.

See you in the new Melbourne strata gold rush.

Francesco …