News roundup: Australia’s Queensland population growth drives property demand, plus more updates

For PropertyGuru’s real estate news roundup, population growth is driving the demand in the property sector of Queensland, Australia. In other updates, the strong inflow of remittances is expected to boost Vietnam’s property market again, and Thailand’s new daily minimum wage drove up home construction prices in the first quarter of 2024.

Australia’s Queensland population growth is driving the property sector with the big money eyeing SEQ

Population growth has put Queensland on the map for major property investors, and the Sunshine State is set to continue to attract big money at the expense of its southern rivals.

Despite yields across all sectors softening in line with the rest of Australia because of higher interest rates, Consolidated Properties Group chief executive Don O’Rorke still believes “Queensland is the place to be”.

“That will continue up to at least the 2032 Olympic and that’s evidenced by population growth that won’t abate,” he said in a report by realcommercial.com.au. “What that means for the property industry is that there’s significant demand for all of our products – places to live, places to work, places to shop, and places to recreate. We will very much have a demand-driven property market for at least the next decade.”

Queensland’s so-called Golden Decade has been backed up by a recent JP Morgan Australian REITs report, which said the state had the best-performing real estate market in the country.

The report estimated that large-cap Real Estate Investment Trusts have AUD16 billion of investment assets in Queensland, or about 16 percent of their trust assets.

Much of this investment in Queensland stemmed from demand driven by elevated population growth and the AUD89 billion being spent on infrastructure to cater for it, as well as the upcoming 2032 Olympics.

Remittance inflows expected to quench Vietnam real estate sector’s thirst for capital: Experts

Amid a “thirst” for capital in real estate businesses, the strong inflow of remittances is expected to heat up the market again.

According to Nguyen Duc Lenh, Vice Director of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s Ho Chi Minh City branch, in the first quarter of this year, the city received USD2.86 billion of remittances, up 3.5 percent over the fourth quarter of 2024 and 35.4 percent over the same period last year, the highest rise in the recent three years.

Remittances were mostly from Asia with a contribution of 59.1 percent, representing a surge of 81.1 percent year on year, he said in VietnamPlus.

The official noted that last year, the city also saw a year-on-year rise of 43.3 percent in remittances to USD9.46 billion.

Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Vo Van Hoan said that the growth in remittance inflow has contributed to stabilising the exchange rate and foreign currency market and promoting economic growth of the city.

Minimum wage hits Thailand’s construction prices

The new daily minimum wage, which became effective in early January, drove up home construction prices in the first quarter, despite a drop in costs due to the influx of Chinese steel and the delayed disbursement of the government’s budget.

Bangkok Post reports that Vichai Viratkapan, acting director-general of the Real Estate Information Center (REIC), said the construction price index for standard homes in the first quarter of 2024 rose 2.3 percent year-on-year to 137.5 and increased 2.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2023.

“The index has been on an upward trend since the third quarter of 2024, but with a slight increase,” he said. “Key drivers were a 6.1 percent increase in minimum labour wages, followed by payments for architecture jobs with an increase of 4.7 percent.”

Effective as of January 2024, the daily minimum wage for unskilled workers nationwide rose between 2-16 baht to a range of 330-370 baht.

This increase led to a rise of 6.1 percent in labour costs for home construction in the first quarter of 2024, compared with the corresponding period last year.

The Property Report editors wrote this article. For more information, email: [email protected].