According to industry experts nearly half of all new apartments built in Australia over the next 5 years will be constructed in Melbourne, with Sydney and Brisbane lagging behind.
Independent consultancy,
Charter Keck Cramer estimates 42,220 apartments will be built in Melbourne from 2015 to 2019, which will be 45 per cent of the national total.
The figures, still down from the 48 per cent of the national total Melbourne amassed between 2010-14 signal that Melbourne’s apartment boom shows no signs of slowing as sales accelerate in all regions of the city according to Robert Papaleo, Charter Keck Cramer’s National Director of Research.
"Melbourne surprised on the upside in part because of the very significant impact of a few major projects by offshore developers in the central city region as well as peak releases in all other regions," Mr Papaleo said.
Growth is also currently booming in areas beyond the CBD in Melbourne. According to industry data there were 4,428 new apartment releases in middle and outer Melbourne – a ring including suburbs such as Doncaster, Glen Waverley and Oakleigh.
This amounts to a 51 per cent gain on the yearly average of 2,929 over the 2010 and 2014 period, according to Charter Keck Cramer.
However the situation in Sydney seems far bleaker.
Despite a well-documented resurgence in growth, Sydney is expected to tread water, with its 35 per cent share of apartment completions (2,250 in the past five years) slipping to 34 per cent, or 31,850 dwellings in the next five years.
The stunt in growth which saw sales of new apartments dip last year was down to constraints such as land release, height controls and lack of capacity in the industry to facilitate faster development according to experts.
Robert Papaleo went on to say that the current stunt in Sydney presented a worrying time as demand is only going to rise in the next 10 years.
"Sydney was held back by a number of factors amongst others including the availability of permitted sites for sale through 2012-2013 to reload the future supply pipeline, height controls and other guidelines that limited the yield achievable across sites as well as capacity constraints in the professional services needed to facilitate development," Mr Palapeo said.
Separate figures measuring new apartment releases (a proxy measure for sales in a booming market) show Sydney sales fell to 14,798 last year from 18,496 in 2013. Melbourne new releases, in contrast jumped to 20,945 from 12,161.
Figures in Brisbane show new apartment releases nearly doubled to 8,287 from 4,263.
The Queensland capital, which completed 8,100 apartments, or 9 per cent of the national total in the five years to 2014, will boost that to 13,050, or 14 per cent of the total in the next five, as growth is expected to skyrocket in the region of South-East Queensland.
Separate figures from the same report also suggest that denser developments are on the rise outside capital city CBDs.
