By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
LAND prices in the Barwon region are still among the nation’s most expensive despite a 3.7 per cent price decrease, according to a new Housing Industry Association report.
The region’s median price of $343 per square metre is the fifth most expensive in Australia.
Geelong is the most expensive regional land sales market in Victoria but still had a 45 per cent increase in turnover in the six months to December 2013.
The median price for lots in Barwon is $180,000, compared with $215,000 for Melbourne.
HIA Victoria executive director Gil King said the report showed the supply side of the residential construction market might be coming under pressure.
Significantly higher demand in 2013 had clashed with “familiar supply bottlenecks, including slow land release, delays in the planning system and outmoded mechanisms for the funding of infrastructure,” he said.
“As long as these problems remain unresolved the land market will continue to feel the pressure.”
The Independent reported in January that Geelong homes had been rated less-affordable than New York and the same as London.
Restrictive land use policies leading to a lack of land supply were blamed, with prices increasing despite a long-term decline in allotment sizes.
A 2014 Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) State of the Land Report said the traditional suburban quarter-acre block was now “nothing but a distant memory”.
The average size was now a tenth of an acre, or 423 square metres, after falling 29 per cent over the past decade, the report said.
UDIA National President Cameron Shephard said barriers to land supply led to the “collapse in new lot sizes” as developers tried to maintain the stock of affordable land.
“Unfortunately, this means that for new home buyers the good old days of tossing the footy around with the kids or having a game of backyard cricket are well and truly over.”
