Qld apartments remain empty despite ongoing shortage

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Three years after construction finished on the most expensive residential development in Queensland's history, hundreds of its beachfront apartments are sitting empty and most of them are not for sale. The Jewel's overseas owners want to maximise its value and say they're in no rush to sell.

Transcript

00:00 It's the sparkling gem on the surfers paradise skyline.

00:05 The 1.5 billion dollar jewel in the Glitter Strip's tourism crown.

00:09 But despite its 340 luxury apartments being completed in 2020, less than 90 have sold.

00:16 Many of them, including the entire 34 storey South Tower, are empty and not for sale.

00:22 The owners position is that they want to maximise the value of their asset.

00:27 They're certainly in no hurry to sell it off.

00:30 The strategy has stumped property analysts who question why the developer would forgo

00:34 hundreds of thousands of dollars in weekly rental income that could offset the building's

00:38 overheads.

00:39 Cleaning, maintaining, security, that is also very expensive.

00:44 So it would be an incredibly high cost to maintain an A grade building on the beach

00:49 front in today's environments.

00:51 In an indication of their drip feed strategy, 30 more jewel apartments have just hit the

00:56 market ranging in price from $950,000 to $6.5 million.

01:02 They're not cheap and therefore the developer argues selling more of them wouldn't help

01:06 ease the housing crisis.

01:08 We definitely have a housing crisis on the Gold Coast where there's not enough affordable

01:13 accommodation offered and I clearly think you wouldn't put this in the affordable home

01:18 category.

01:19 The housing minister argues affordable or not, every property matters.

01:24 Everyone in Queensland wants to see more housing supply and I think it would be great to see

01:29 developers do the right thing.

01:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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