Welcome to Part Two of my recent property acquisition trip to the Gold Coast and Great Brisbane region.
As I mentioned in Part One (click here to read it again) I spent the first part of my trip reviewing properties in the southern Gold Coast region so now it’s time to head north…
One of my personal highlights of this trip was heading out to Ipswich to watch my hero Craig Lowndes stand on the podium for all three races at the V8 Supercars on yet another glorious Queensland 25 degree winters day!
Ok… Back to viewing existing and potential investment locations…
It was about 6 and half years ago when I first visited Greater Springfield and truly realised its potential. However, I knew we had to wait until the right time to invest in this growth region.
Greater Springfield is our country’s largest master planned community (tenth largest globally) and in 2010 Greater Springfield won Best Master Planned International Community award.
Greater Springfield has been designed around 3 main pillars – education, health and information technology. The city’s vision is to be by 2030 the size of Darwin with a population of 105,000, committed to, and on track to secure, at least one full time job for every three members of its community.
Over $11.7 billion of $23.5B has already been spent on this satellite city which lies only 24kms from Brisbane. It has access to 86% of Brisbane metropolitan workforce within a 30 minute drive thanks to the recent completion of the upgrade of the roads and heavy rail network.
The amount of infrastructure happening in the CBD is huge. A number of state and international businesses are in construction phase. This includes the Robelle Domain Swimming lagoon, the Orion Springfield shopping centre expansion and the first stage of the 52 hectare Health Precinct, when completed will be Australia’s largest. It will cover all aspects of health and wellness through quality healthcare, medical education to aged and seniors living. GE has now moved into their new national purposely built headquarters.
I was blown away as the whole CBD was unrecognisable since I was there 12 months ago!
What really stood out is that the infrastructure went in first.
It was blatantly obvious that the infrastructure of these growing centres are properly planned and constructed before the expansion of population. Imagine that… planning for population growth and building roads, freeways, train stations, bus ports, hospitals, schools and commercial centres in anticipation of that growth.
The following day, after yet another relaxing morning at beautiful Broadbeach, it was time to head north.
I dropped Trish off at Harbour Town and soon wondered if it was such a great idea as she may not emerge for days… if you haven’t been there it is massive, so much so it even has own tourism office and guided tours just for the shops… It makes Perth Harbour Town look like the corner store!
First stop was to inspect a new build for one of our clients, and I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Our clients had only settled on their block of land 3 weeks earlier, and I discovered the build was already at frame height. The build is scheduled to be finished and tenanted within 12 weeks!!
The location is Coomera, the home of Dreamworld, and is a growing community destined to become a satellite city. It currently has a $2.44 billion development of the city centre underway located around the existing park and ride train station. It will include a $1.4 billion Westfield centre, cinema complex and artificial beach. Coomera is the perfect location for both work and play being 35 minutes to Brisbane and 20 minutes to the Gold Coast. A hop skip and a jump to the Gold Coast Marine Precinct, M1 Motorway and the beautiful Hinterlands.
I caught up with the staff at the Dennis Family head office in South Brisbane and check out their new developments. It is always important to meet with the developers and get insiders information on what is really happening in the Greater Brisbane area – grass roots information that you can’t find online.
I do enjoy these trips as I get to spend time with passionate developers and their teams, people who love property as much as I do. With them I get to explore their development sites, poor over their plans and discuss their ideas and visions for the future.
I headed 25km north of Brisbane, to the Morteon Bay Region and I was once again stunned by the level of construction in the area. A combination of the new $1.4B train line, the $230 million dollar expansion of the Westfield’s North Lakes shopping centre, including the construction of another Ikea store. As you may already know, international businesses like Ikea do not build megastores unless the region meets their strict criteria and the Great Brisbane region now has 2! Costco also recently opened its first Queensland store in this new business district.
It is always a great sign when large international businesses move into an area, as it means growth and long term stability, all the signs a good investor looks for.
Our first involvement in this area was “Northquater Place” in Murrumba Downs. We have successfully been involved in this development since the beginning and it is now in the completion phase of stage 5. Northquater Place has become a unique, superior, well maintained development with an open tranquil feel.
There has been a fair bit of talk lately about Brisbane’s “Golden Triangle”. Well folks… that where I have just taken you.
We have opportunities in all these regions from the north of Brisbane, to the west and down to the Gold Coast. The potential in these areas is staggering and almost impossible to find comparisons to in other major cities in Australia.
One full week on the East Coast done, and we headed home exhausted but excited, and to top it off an Eagles home game against the Hawks.
What a trip… the growth in these areas since my last visit, combined with the developers, council, community and business confidence and positivity is very exciting… and I can’t stop raving about it!
This trip definitely confirmed my assessment of these locations to become viable investments for you, our clients.
Now to plan my next property acquisition trip… Melbourne.
