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Vol 12. No.14

Landsburys Independent Accreditation Reports

Economic Overview

	Current	+/-	Movement
$AUS/$US	98.92	+0.38
Cash Rate	4.75	Steady
90 Day Bill	4.93	+0.01
10 Year Bond	5.622	+0.079
ASX 200	4755.8	-28.0

Victoria Property

• A historic Port Melbourne building with three levels of office space has been sold to a local private investor for $6 million.
• The building, located at 2-6 Bay Street, was built in 1872 and is situated on an 818 square metre block.

• Cromwell Group has secured hardware joint venture partners Woolworths and US retailer Lowe’s as a tenant for its distribution centre at Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne.
• The 10 year lease will reduce the sum of expiring income in Cromwell’s property portfolio for fiscal 2011 by 5.3%.

Queensland Property

• Queensland’s floods will lift construction costs, both for material and labour, by 4% in Brisbane and higher in regional areas.
• The estimated rise is a fraction of what was anticipated as the state’s extra capacity and higher unemployment help to absorb rising costs.
• It is expected that the short-term demand for rectification works may cause construction cost increased of 2 to 4% in Brisbane.
• Queensland’s regional areas such as Emerald and Rockhampton will incur more substantial price rises due to their remoteness and lack of labour materials.
• Before the bulk of flooding took place many construction material companies had already announced price increases, which will come into effect on April 1.
• Materials such as concrete and quarry based materials, including crushed rock for road fill, are expected to increase in price.
• Prior to the flooding, overall building construction activity levels in Queensland had fallen some 11% from the peak levels of 2008, with activity in the residential sector being some 20% below the level of 2008.
• It is expected that some prices will rise but the capacity in the system would be enough to cope with the extra demand.
• A rise in the cost of labour due to a shortage will also be mitigated to some degree by the unemployment levels in trades on the Gold Coast and Townsville as well as streamlining of workplace arrangements by the state government.
• The government has recently allowed interstate plumbers and drainers to assist with the floor recovery work by enabling them to immediately obtain a Queensland license.