Architects point investors towards residential towers with a community feel
Investors should look for units in residential towers which have a sense of community about them, according to architects.
Hayball director Rob Stent says towers that build a sense of community retain their value better than other more bland developments.
One tower he designed six years ago now includes heavily booked communal facilities, multiple book reading clubs, dining clubs and networking meetings.
He describes it as a vertical neighbourhood where people have a sense of belonging and community which makes the building sought after.
“Being sought after retains the values and has a higher sense of owner pride. It's a self-perpetuating thing,” Stent told Property Observer.
“Having a building with the right settings you have the value retained. That's what developers that have a longer term perspective on brand and investors with a longer term eye to increased capital values should be having a look at.”
Australian apartment dwellers are more and more looking at shared spaces as a way to offset the space constraints of unit living.
Head of architecture at Monash, Diego Ramírez-Lovering, says Australian residents are becoming more and more used to communal living.
“In Australia it's not quite Sweden where 10 families will happily share a kitchen. It may get there one day,” Ramírez-Lovering says.
Also important is the concept of a 20-minute neighbourhood where people can walk to most places they need to go.
“This issue of the surroundings is an incredibly important issue; we see a lot of people moving out to the fringes buying a house and land package which is relatively affordable,” Ramírez-Lovering says.
“But they then spend a fortune on commuting all around town for employment and recreation and so on. I would say the key is to try and get these clusters of activity so you don't have to go too far.”
They were speaking to Property Observer from Synergy Property’s Nord development, in North Melbourne, a site with a Walk Score of 93.
Hayball has been working on the project for two years and marketing for the project is just underway.
The development includes units of three-bedroom configurations which Ramírez-Lovering says is an increasingly important part of new developments in Melbourne.
“There is a situation in Melbourne with higher density living that has resulted in sub-standard new apartments of impossible size up to 32 square metres and blind bedrooms,” Ramírez-Lovering says.
“You can understand how the market gets to that point but it's interesting to understand that as we shift to a more intense and dense city and apartments become the norm and have much more diverse households living in them.
“Having apartments that are adequately sized that provide great amenity is so crucial.”
Stent says anecdotal evidence shows renters are less interested in lower quality unit stock now.
“Agents say they’ve never been so busy at painting and carpeting these old style apartments. They're no longer sought after. People are making the choice if they’re renting to go somewhere else that has more amenity or comfort or interior style and quality.”
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Transcript
I'm very interested as to how we're going to as architects really engage in a really meaningful way in terms of the challenges that are facing our community. We're going to be faced with enormous challenges - the aging population; the productivity commission news is alarming. That's been there for some time. People should be aware of it. How are we going to provide the housing and healthcare for an aging population which will be a significant part of the population with a diminished tax base. Look at the figures in terms of in Melbourne there's 2030 looking to be 6-7 million, recent ABS just released. Our increasingly diverse population is very different to what it was 15-20 years AGO. With not only our ethnic diversity but our demographic diversity in terms of also household configurations. Single households are the fastest growing households in Australia - what that means for housing. We're starting to see evidence the house and land package on the fringe is no longer appealing to many people. There’s still a lot of housing of that nature being build but there’s a need to provide alternative means of housing to satisfy diversity.
Developers that are in tune with those changes increasingly focus on providing a range of housing and not just sticking to the same old. The ones which will be adaptable and ready to meet the changes will be successful. Those that do the same old same old will be less successful because it's been a very simple process.
From investor’s point of view, if they're looking at a development they need to look at those sorts of developments through these eyes. Who’s out there that’s going be giving them the bigger market, that's a much broader market more diverse market than in Australia's history. It is a diverse population now. I n terms of where investors look they'll have to look at our society. That's having a number of attributes in the apartments. Whether there's flexibility in terms of apartments, spatially, what else it offers to provide an opportunity that you can't find in your apartment because of size constraints because of the commercial constraints that you would have augment. For example a playground or a playroom or spaces where you can have a party of have friends and family around.
We did the development some time ago with about 400 apartments, about six years old now. It’s born out in terms of what can emerge in terms in communities in a vertical scale. It has heavily booked communal facilities, there's 3-4 book reading clubs in the building, dining clubs, a whole series of networks and meetings in the building. It’s like a vertical neighbourhood. People do have the sense of belonging and community which makes buildings sought after. Being sought after retains there values and has a higher sense of owner pride. It's a self-perpetuating thing. Having a building with the right settings you have the value retained. That's what developers that have a longer term perspective brand and investors with a longer term eye to increased capital values should be having a look at.
In Australia it's not quite Sweden where 10 families will happily share a kitchen. It may get there one day but the interesting thing is to look at is what’s more successfully with sharing, or less successful. In one of your buildings I looked at, one of the key locations for sharing was the laundry. That makes so much sense because it's student housing. However this notion about rethinking our preconceptions about sharing are. There can be much more sharing than there is now on the other hand not all sharing works. Private open space is held dear dear by the population. That will shift over time. This issue of the surroundings is an incredibly important issue; we see a lot of people moving out to the fringes buying a house and land package which is relatively affordable. But they then spend a fortune on commuting all around town for employment and recreation and so on. I would say the key is to try and get these clusters of activity so you don't have to go too far. That is challenging because the housing usually comes first and services follows. I think that's a flawed model. There are different ways to think about it in alternative ways. A notion that a house might not just be a house but it might be your office. It might not just be for your immediate family. It might be possible to sell or rent a portion of your house if circumstances change. So Thinking about housing because there is so much of it particularly in middle and outer suburbs, in ways which acknowledges all these changes function in much more flexible ways to accurate these things because the services very often take a long time to get there.
I live in Richmond. We’ve got a great deal of diversity just in our street. Our neighbours are three two-storey 60s built flats. There's leasing boards on them all the time. According to agents they say they’ve never been so busy at painting and carpeting these old style apartments. They're no longer sought after. People are making the choice if they’re renting to go somewhere else that has more amenity or comfort or interior style and quality. People need to be mindful that quality apartments are what people live in to purchase or rent. What we're seeing is some of the lower quality stock being hard to move. Some of the smaller apartments have resistance in terms of rental.
There is a situation in Melbourne with higher density living that has resulted in sub-standard new apartments of impossible size up to 32 square metres and blind bedrooms. You can understand how the market gets to that point but it's interesting to understand that as we shift to a more intense and dense city and apartments become the norm and have much more diverse households living in them. Having apartments that are adequately sized that provide great amenity is so crucial. It's great to see the inclusion of 3 bedroom apartments even though it seems like such a small detail the ability to have families in what was homogenous environment is a great idea.