By Aimee Chanthadavong
Predictions for the retail property market are worst off compared to the other property classes of commercial, industrial and residential, according to the Australian Property Institute (API).
The API’s 28th Australian Property Directions Survey has predicted decreases in retail market values and rentals for the next 12 months in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“Retailers will need to get better with their development and reconfigure their formats to meet the market,” Tyrone Hodge, API NSW vice president, told RetailBiz.
“They’ll need to get much smarter and react more quickly to the changing market to adapt to the changing buyer behaviour.”
But this forecast does not wander far from the general feeling of the property market in these three cities. The survey respondents predict commercial, retail, industrial and residential property in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane as making only small forward progress on the upswing of the property cycle over the next two years.
“Market values and market rentals for commercial property in Brisbane are predicted to increase in the next 12 months while both are predicted to have smaller increases in Sydney and Melbourne,” Hodge, said.
The large majority of respondents see lease incentives as features of all Australian capital city markets. Estimates were made as an annual percentage over a five year lease term.
“Overall since September, there is a trend for lease incentives to have decreased across CBDs in capital cities except for Adelaide and Hobart where lease incentives have increased according to survey respondents,” Hodge said.
Additionally, the survey indicated In the three cities a majority of respondents see effective rents increasing over the next 12 months with stronger sentiment in Sydney and Brisbane than in Melbourne.