Create the right balance

People struggle with using colour in home decoration, but the impact can be achieved without being garish.
* To achieve a successful balance, the use of natural rugs or dark-stained furniture will ground the colour scheme.
* When selecting cushions, choose a varying colour palette & mismatch the patterns. Mismatched cushions look best on a plain fabric sofa or a stripe or small pattern.

* With furniture selection, invest in a good quality sofa with a classic shape that won`t date & can be     recovered over time.         

* Mix antiques & modern furniture to create a layered, interesting & unique look.

* Invest in beautiful paintings
* Create unique tablescapes on coffee, hall & sofa tables using your collection, for example, family photographs, books, old boxes or vases of flowers.
* Most of all, buying things you love will create their very own unique thread that joins them together.

The ‘goss’ on Coolum area sales

House for sale statistics in our local, established area show a significant tightening of house stock availability, which strongly suggests we are moving away from the strong buyer “discount” market of recent times to a more balanced market.

The situation with high rise apartments/units is quite different, due mainly to pressures on the higher investor ownership & their general unsuitability for owner-occupiers.

This class of property ownership sees much better use of capital elsewhere, and often this divestment is more of a financial necessity than a desire!

Over many years I have tracked statistics for the same house population of some 2.200 in Mount Coolum and Yaroomba, & a range of between 3% to 4% of the housing population has generally been on the market at any one point in time. Over 4%, or under 3% historically means market change skewing towards either the benefit of the buyer or the seller.

By contrast, It got to 4.5% last year, is now down to 2.15%, this is  a reduction of over 50% of houses on the market.

 Put simply, the choice for buyers is much diminished, which theoretically should lead to more realistic offers from buyers and potential sellers now looking to make that move.

This change in the older, established areas is overlooked by the casual observer as relatively new estates such as The Boardwalk and Peregian Springs continue to suffer from oversupply at higher prices.

These developments were fuelled by builder and investor “spec” home construction, believing prices would continue to rise exponentially, & also to benefit from high depreciation allowances during the first 5/7 years of a new building.

The cream of depreciation has been claimed, prices have fallen well below replacement cost & financial stress has kicked in, hence properties are readily available in these estates

The combination of high stock availability, very low prices on record & price marketing by leading agencies, , eg, “bargain hunters welcome”, “owner must sell”, “make an offer” continues to shape buyer expectations downwards in these estates.

Sooner or later the penny will drop with buyers as to the true value of the more spacious, well presented, older, established home between $400,000 and $500,000, &those buyers early enough to recognize the opportunity will buy, those that don`t will miss out because this stock is in very limited supply.

Coast $4b development

Clive Palmer has detailed "jaw dropping" plans to spend up to $4 billion to create an international hotel, casino and tourism destination on the Sunshine Coast on a par with world-class facilities in Dubai.

Palmer recently puchased the iconic Hyatt Coolum Resort, which is the largest employer in the immediate region, removing the Hyatt from management and renaming the resort as the Palmer Coolum Resort. Many jobs have been lost in the short term as he strives to stem the massive losses apparently incurred durng the 20 year Hyatt reign

The billionaire met Sunshine Coast Council Mayor Mark Jamieson for almost three hours recently to reveal his plans which might include possible development of a chairlift or skylink to Mt Coolum.

Bill Schoch, general manager of the Palmer Coolum Resort, is reported as saying the "multifaceted" plans involve a $3 billion to $4 billion investment which would put the Sunshine Coast on the international map.

Mr Palmer apparently wants to make a major destination of world-class significance at Coolum similar to developments in Dubai and it will be on a massive scale but it will all be done with local sensitivity according to Mr Schoch.

Mr Schoch said it would be some months before the plans were made public because Mr Palmer wanted to ensure his plans were likely to be approved by various levels of government before he announced them.

Palmer is known as an eccentric, vis a vis his tourist project to develop a Titanic replica, but as a multi-billionaire he has very deep pockets and everything he talks about must be taken at face value.