Real estate agent Rocky Gagliardi says there are only a few regular sized house blocks left to sell in Emerald Bank Estate at Kialla.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Shepparton is facing a land shortage for new houses, according to a local real estate agent.
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Gagliardi Scott Real Estate managing director Rocky Gagliardi is fearful the town will run out of new blocks of land to sell.
Mr Gagliardi said there were a few regular sized blocks left to sell in Emerald Bank Estate at Kialla, and there were some lifestyle blocks in Providence and Lauriston Estate in Shepparton North, but that was all.
He said the regular sized house blocks in Kialla’s Seven Creeks Estate and Sanctuary Park were effectively sold out.
He admitted there were also small blocks available in Uptown estate in Shepparton North, but believed they were mainly being bought as packages due to the size.
Mr Gagliardi said that before COVID times, he was selling land in 13 to 14 subdivisions.
“There’s really nothing to sell now,” he said.
Mr Gagliardi said real estate agents had been telling Greater Shepparton City Council that they did not have enough subdivisions available for years.
“They say they have supply coming up in 2027,” he said.
However, Mr Gagliardi said land was needed now.
While he noted that a recent announcement of fast-tracking the development of the old Radio Australia site in Shepparton North was good news, he said that land would still be “years away” from being able to be sold.
Housing blocks at Sevens Creeks Estate at Kialla are “effectively sold out”, according to Rocky Gagliardi.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Mr Gagliardi said council’s policy on how much land it would have for development at all times needed to look further into the future than it currently did.
City of Greater Shepparton Mayor Shane Sali said council planned for “around 15 years of residential land supply”, which he said was “consistent with state planning policy and helps ensure infrastructure can be delivered efficiently and in a co-ordinated way”.
However, Mr Gagliardi said this had not occurred in recent years, leading to an extremely tight supply of development parcels and “exorbitant prices” being sought by existing landowners.
That means either developers don’t buy the land, or they do, and land sale prices to consumers increases, he said.
Mr Gagliardi said it was a simple issue of supply and demand.
If more land was available, then there would be more competition and the unrealistic price tags would be replaced with more realistic ones. This would drive prices for development parcels down and lead to more choices and more affordable land for sale for consumers, he said.
Council sustainable development director Geraldine Christou said council did not control the timing, staging, or commercial viability of land release.
“Council’s role is to strategically plan and zone land. The market determines when and how land is released,” she said.
Ms Christou did not think there was a problem with the amount of available land in Greater Shepparton.
“Greater Shepparton continues to have a substantial supply of zoned land available for future housing development, including large areas within approved Precinct Structure Plans,” she said.
“This includes Shepparton North East (177 hectares) and Shepparton South East (248 hectares), as well as additional zoned land in growth areas like Kialla West and Kialla North where PSPs are currently being prepared.”
However, Mr Gagliardi said this was not a true reflection of what occurred on the ground.
Shepparton real estate agent Rocky Gagliardi is concerned about what he says is a lack of land for new houses in Shepparton.
Because land is rezoned for residential use, it did not mean the land was capable of delivering titles now, he said.
He said in the North East Growth Corridor a Goulburn-Murray Water irrigation channel runs through the middle of the land, which can’t be developed until it is piped.
That meant that while the land was zoned, people could not buy a titled block and build a home.
Mr Gagliardi also said the land at Shepparton South East had only recently been rezoned, that the delay had contributed to the tight supply market and that it would be a long time before consumers could build a house in the south-east, most likely not before 2028.
He said the south-east also had very high developer contribution fees developers had to pay to council.
These factors had driven prices up and lot sizes down, and because of that, the land available was not the sort of block size or at the right prices that many buyers were looking for, according to Mr Gagliardi.
“They are talking about releases (of land) but not at the size needed,” he said.
“People are wanting to build a four-bedroom home.”
He said that while the new Goldfields Estate in south Shepparton and Uptown in Shepparton North had blocks, they were much smaller, and the expensive levies developers had to pay council were driving prices up for eventual buyers.
With prices of the smaller blocks being pushed up, it also meant larger blocks would increase as well, he said.
Rocky Gagliardi says Uptown Estate has smaller sized blocks and that developers are facing expensive council levies that push prices up.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Mr Gagliardi said in the next few years the effect of these circumstances would see blocks that were 700sqm to 900sqm being sold for $300,000 to $400,000.
Currently blocks of this size sell for between $265,000 and $285,000.
Ms Christou said council was in the process of updating its supply and demand analysis for land.
“This will provide a detailed picture of residential land availability across the municipality to ensure our planning remains responsive to current conditions,” she said.
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