Private housing flattens out

PRIVATE HOUSING STARTS FLAT

Home construction starts by the private sector were largely unchanged in seasonally adjusted terms during the March quarter, while there was a 73 per cent increase in public housing starts across the country, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show. Eleven per cent of all residential construction starts in the March quarter were for public housing, compared with just 5 per cent in the December quarter. “The headline increase in home starts of 4.3 per cent simply reflects the surge in public housing under the federal government’s economic stimulus program rather than a nationwide improvement in private sector activity,” the Urban Taskforce’s chief executive, Aaron Gadiel, says. NSW and Queensland saw a 14 per cent improvement in private sector home starts for the March quarter compared with the same period last year.

LEND LEASE RESIZES BARANGAROO

Property developer Lend Lease has released revised plans for Sydney’s controversial new harbourside development, Barangaroo. The plans show the company has scaled down its original designs, with three commercial buildings rather than four, more residential property and a smaller hotel. The hotel, which has been at the centre of controversy over the $6 billion project, has been cut from 213 metres to 159 metres after concerns were expressed during community consultation. David Hutton, group head of development for Lend Lease, said the group had listened to feedback “received on our original design and further improved the proposed plans”.

PUB SALES PICK UP

Publicans have snapped up pubs in NSW in recent weeks says CBRE Hotels. The agency has negotiated five sales in the past few weeks, ­totalling more than $20 million, on top of $21 million in sales that have been agreed to. The recent sales involved such hoteliers as Patrick Gallagher, who owns PJ Gallagher’s Irish Pubs ­in Drummoyne in the inner-west of Sydney, Parramatta in the west of Sydney and the Union Hotel in North ­Sydney. Fifth-generation hotelier William Ryan, former owner of the Cauliflower Hotel at Waterloo in Sydney’s inner west, has also re-entered the market. Changes to the gaming tax, including a $200,000 tax-free threshold on poker-machine revenue, have given buyers more certainty, CBRE Hotels director Joel Fisher says.

BRW

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