Shadow Play's Jonathan Hallinan now exuberant, rather than exiting the Melbourne apartment development scene

Jonathan Hallinan hasn't quit Melbourne apartment development market after-all.
He has bought a small Southbank site, just months after securing a gullible Australian Financial Review headline that he was quitting because it was all too hard.
He now claims huge rental demand for apartments in his $300 million Shadow Play tower on Southbank had convinced him there was strong appetite for new development.
"Then in the next cycle – two years from now – I plan to relaunch the big 300 to 500 unit projects, that others won't do," he added.
"It would appear that our policy makers, who evidently believe that their actions are alleviating the pressures of an over-heated housing market, are, with great success, crippling the very industry that has the power to ease the housing affordability crisis."
Hallinan listed the recent adverse changes:
1. Introduction of APRA regulations on banks and financial lenders which resulted in changes to investment lending, reducing the borrowing power of investors.
2. Removal of the stamp-duty concession from off-the-plan purchasers for investors
3. Introduction of plot ratios to the Melbourne planning scheme, hugely lessening the number of dwellings that could be built on a development site.
4. Implementation of apartment design guidelines, forcing developers to build fewer larger and more expensive apartments.
5. Limitations on foreign purchasers to not more than 50% ownership in a given apartment project
6. 7% foreign surcharge on all offshore purchasers
7. Enforcement of minimum $5,000 FIRB application fees
8. Increase of 5.5% stamp duty fees on foreign purchasers
9. Enforcement of absentee surcharges on purchasers with properties vacant for six months or more
10. Proposed introduction of a new tax on the four banks as part of the 2017 Budget.
Jonathan Hallinan founded BPM in 1995 securing early success with luxury townhouses in Melbourne’s bayside areas.
At its peak BPM had more than 2,600 apartments across 16 projects under development with a combined value in excess of $1.4 billion.
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