General News

While some industries are preparing to slash jobs, the demand for experienced property industry staff remains high. Speaking in Melbourne, Buckmaster Hawkey Director, Mark Appleby said that while the overall jobs market was flat, the outlook for Melbourne real estate jobs remained strong. “We’re seeing continued high demand for property managers, portfolio managers and experienced administration staff”, he said. “This is in stark contrast to other professional industries, such as finance, where the need for qualified staff appears to be softening.” The December employment figures show manufacturing shed 44,800 jobs in the second half of 2011 while just under 30,000 jobs were cut from both the agriculture and retail sectors.

The outlook for industrial property is improving with more than a third of businesses planning to increase their leased space in the next 12 months. The Vaughan Constructions National Survey focused on businesses with more than $50 million turnover and staff of 100 people. The report’s findings included 53% of respondents reporting their business would improve in 2012 and only 10% saying they expected their sales to decrease this year. The best outlook was for the food distribution and manufacturing sector, but the survey also reported wide-spread demand for value for money industrial space.

While the property market recorded negative growth in 2012, there were some positive signs at the end of the year. Australian Bureau of Statistics property data shows home loans were up 1.4% in November and loans to property investors rose 1.8%. Property market experts said these statistics reflect an increase in inspections by first homebuyers and to a lesser extent investors in the last two months of 2012, encouraged by two consecutive interest rate cuts. However the wider household market still appears to be concentrating on paying down debt and avoiding new borrowings. The financial markets are expecting further RBA rates cuts in 2012, starting with the Board’s meeting on February 7. This could set the scene for house price growth to emerge in 2012.

The unemployment rate was steady at 5.2% in December but the ANZ job advertisement index fell for the first time in almost a year. Job ads in December were 2.6% lower from the same month last year, the first annual contraction since February 2010. Job ads on the internet fell 1.1% in December, and 2.3% for the year, but newspaper ads rose 3.5% in December, the second increase in a row. Newspaper job ads tend to signal employment growth trends while the ANZ job ad series typically leads ABS unemployment growth by around three months.

Have you checked out RealEstateSalaries.com.au? Follow the link under Job Seekers or Employers. Realestatesalaries is a peer-to-peer salary comparison website designed to improve the transparency of industry salaries and find out how much real estate people really earn. Find out what you are worth and what your peers are earning!

On behalf of the team at Buckmaster Hawkey, we hope you had a prosperous 2011 and wish you all the best for 2012!

According to a new survey, 650,000 Australians aged 45 and over never intend to retire from work. It’s just one of the surprising findings in a recent ABS study. The other was that while some Australians want to keep working, worryingly, another 400,000 believe retirement may not be an option for them. The ABS survey found just under 4 million workers said they would retire, and 36% of these said their age of retirement would be dependent on their financial security. The other major reasons for retirement include health and eligibility for the age pension. Of the 8.5 million Australians aged 45 years more, more than half, 4.9 million, were employed full time, while 3.2 million had permanently retired. 41% of people over the age of 45 in full-time work wanted to work part-time at some point before their retirement. The average age of retirement for Australians is now 61.

The demand for real estate people continues to rise and the early signs for the 2012 jobs market look positive. Online job ads, a forward indicator of the demand for employees, rose 0.7% in November according to SEEK. Managing Director Joe Powell said, “The Australian job market has been quite resilient considering the uncertainties of the European and North American economies. Although we have seen a gradual slowing in the jobs market, job ad numbers on SEEK are 2.7% higher than a year ago”. One of the stand-out performers between September and November was the property development sector, where the number of positions advertised online rose 17%. Ads for human resources specialists also showed a surprisingly strong result with advertised positions rising 19%. The biggest increase in online job ads during this period was in the education sector, which recruits most of their staff in final months of the calendar year. Retail ads also rose sharply, reflecting the need for new staff for the Christmas shopping season. Top five fast moving jobs (September - November) Tertiary Teachers up 83% Primary Teachers up 46% Vocational Teachers up 34% HR Specialists up 19% Property Developers and Retail up 17%

The Buckmaster Hawkey office will be closed for the Christmas - New Year holidays from 1pm, Thursday 22 December until 8.30am, Tuesday 3 January 2012. The team at Buckmaster Hawkey wish you a safe and happy festive season - and a prosperous New Year.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has forecast Australia’s jobless rate will rise, albeit slightly, in the next two years. The government’s Mid Year Economic Forecast predicts unemployment will rise to 5.5% over the next two years, a rate higher than the current rate of 5.3% and the forecast in the 2011 federal budget. Part of this rise will be due to a decrease in federal government jobs as the Treasurer announced an increase in the Commonwealth public service’s efficiency targets.

Have you ever wanted to know exactly what you’re worth? Well, wonder no longer. Buckmaster Hawkey has launched RealEstateSalaries.com.au, a peer-to-peer salary comparison website. It draws on entries from thousands of professionals so that every firm and candidate will know exactly what the market is paying for a real estate job. To find out if your real estate salary is meeting the mark, visit realestatesalaries.com.au or follow the link on the Buckmaster Hawkey’s homepage.

Rental property remains in high demand according to the REIV, with the vacancy rate in metropolitan Melbourne below 3% for the last 5 years. According to REIV spokesman, Robert Larocca, ‘‘A combination of growing population and little growth in construction lead to rapidly increasing prices and rents. Over the past five years, the pressures in the rental market have matched those in the owner-occupier market.'' The small falls in property values this year, between 3% and 6% depending which data is relied on, means that yields on a typical inner city property has edged up from around 3.7% to 4%.

Job growth has failed to keep up with the number of Australians entering the employment market in 2011. Employment figures released by the Federal Government show jobs growing at an annualised trend rate of just 0.6%, or 10,000 jobs a month, while the labour force grew by 289,000 this year. There were a total of 138,000 positions created in 2011, well below the rate anticipated in the Federal budget which forecasted half a million new jobs for 2011-12. No surprises that mining is the fastest growing sector as investment in the mining sector soars, but export based mining accounts for only 1.5% of employment in Australia. On the other hand, real estate is a much larger sector and recorded continued jobs growth in Melbourne and across the country. The SEEK count of online job advertisements shows a fall 2.8% in October, the third consecutive fall, driven in part by number of applicants per job falling 1.9%. This suggests employers are finding it harder to find suitable candidates.

Generation Y workers are the least satisfied at work and most likely to quit. A national survey by human resources consultancy Mercer found 40% of employees were considering leaving their current position, but in the 25 to 34 age group, the proportion thinking of quitting jumped to over 50%. Surprisingly, the largest single reason for Gen Y wanting to leave was not their pay or their manager but the nature of the work. Older workers were more satisfied with the nature of their work but had higher levels of dissatisfaction with career development and pay. Buckmaster Hawkey Director, Mark Appleby says this report highlights an opportunity for people looking to fill Melbourne real estate jobs. “We have raised Gen Y kids to believe that you don’t have a job for life. This report highlights that many good recruits for property jobs are working outside the industry but want to get in.''

An Ernst & Young report found wasted staff time cost Australian businesses $109 billion. The productivity study by the consulting and accounting firm found that while Australians were among the hardest-working and most motivated workers in the OECD, working an average of 44 hours on each week, 18% of their time at work was reported to be either ineffective or of no value.

Demand for real estate employees continues to grow according to the latest Buckmaster Hawkey Real Estate Jobs Index. The index shows demand for real estate candidates growing in September with the index at 1.56, down from its peak of 1.77 in August, but still above other sectors of the economy. According to Buckmaster Hawkey Director, Mark Appleby, the increasing numbers of real estate job ads highlights how finding and hiring the right real estate professional has become increasingly difficult with fewer candidates available on the market this year.

The Buckmaster Hawkey team are delighted to welcome the latest addition to our family. Congratulations Jeanette on the safe arrival of Amelie on Monday 26th September.

ABS figures show the number of women on real estate boards has increased. Over the last five years, the proportion of female board members in real estate firms grew, in stark contrast with many other sectors where the female presence on boards decreased. Sectors with a falling number of women board members include the media, finance and insurance, food, beverages and tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. Helen Conway, Head of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, said the overall trend of reduced female participation at board level was “very disturbing".

The Victoria Minister of Planning has approved more high rise apartment towers. Recently, the Minister, Matthew Guy, approved a new 26 level development behind the National Trust recognised Streamline Moderne in West Melbourne, which will retain the former building as its entrance, and a 32 level residential tower next to the Flagstaff Gardens. Other recent approvals have proved more controversial, including a 26 storey apartment complex in St Kilda Junction and a 25 level apartment complex in central Footscray. Local councils criticised both of these developments as being out of character with the area.

Victoria recorded an increase in full time employment in August. ABS Labour Force data for August shows 16,900 new full time jobs were created in Victoria holding the unemployment rate steady at 5.1%. Victoria now has the second-lowest unemployment rate of any state, down from 5.5% a year ago. The good news in employment follows recent National Accounts data which showed Victoria's economy grew by 0.6% in the latest quarter to record growth of 2.3% over the year.

Commercial property vacancies are falling, pointing to an improving market. The latest report by the Property Council of Australia found that in the six months to July 2011, vacancies for commercial property in Melbourne decreased to 5.8%. The commercial market also improved in Brisbane with vacancies falling to 7.4% and in Perth where vacancies fell to 7.8%. In Sydney, the picture was mixed, with CBD vacancies rising to 9.3% but vacancies falling in North Sydney. Falling vacancy levels in the commercial property market can point to improvements in rents and yields.

Over the last six months, Melbourne’s property market has seen its momentum fade but while some commentators have predicted doom, industry leaders are telling us that the market remains essentially stable.

The six year shortage of rental properties in Melbourne has begun to ease according to the REIV.

Australia’s real estate and rental management business is now worth $33 billion.

Property values fell in most Australian cities including Melbourne according to RP Data.

According to law firm Blake Dawson, many infrastructure projects are failing to asses risk adequately.

Growth in demand for Victorian employees slowed in the second quarter but real estate accelerated its hiring.

Buckmaster Hawkey’s 2011 breakfast seminar heard from industry experts about the trends shaping the property sector today.

Buckmaster Hawkey is delighted to welcome our newest team member Alisha Mackrell