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Vol 12. No.22

Landsburys Independent Accreditation Reports

Economic Overview

	Current	+/-	Movement
$AUS/$US	100.98	-0.17
Cash Rate	4.75	Steady
90 Day Bill	4.90	-0.01
10 Year Bond	5.582	-0.050
ASX 200	4820.6	+24.1

Queensland Property

• Commercial property and tourism will continue to lag in Queensland’s economy in what economist Saul Eslake calls the state’s first recession in a generation.
• Speaking to the Urban Development Institute in Brisbane, Mr Eslake said that a recession was unusual in Queensland but the financial crisis, the slowdown in international and interstate migration and the fall in tourism has all had an impact.
• Queensland treasury has forecast that the annual growth rate will drop to 1.25% because of the losses in mining, agriculture and tourism due to the floods alone.
• Mr Eslake forecasts that the rebuilding would underpin 75% of the expected 5% growth for 2011-12. While the mining and agriculture sectors would take off, poor marketing of the tourism industry nationwide and the dramatic decline of the commercial property sector would not keep pace.

National Property

• Approvals to build apartments and townhouses increased more than 20% in December, driven by a steady upturn in NSW.
• There were 5,574 apartments and townhouses approved nationally in December – the highest monthly number since 2004.
• In NSW there has been a 50% increase in apartment approvals over the past year.
• There was a 66% rise in apartment approvals in Victoria and increases in Tasmania and South Australia over the year, but approvals fell in Queensland and Western Australia.
• NSW Planning Minister Tony Kelly claimed credit for NSW’s performance because of the government’s $20,000 cap on infrastructure levies in most local government areas, stamp duty exemption for homes purchased off the plan for less than $600,000 and other initiatives to streamline the planning process.
• Developers said the NSW government’s stamp duty exemption has helped them achieve the pre-sales required to get projects off the ground.