Property Council director Bruce Djite says high confidence in SA market must be met with action

Despite boasting Australia’s strongest property sentiment, South Australia faces a stark choice between capitalising on market confidence or watching its reputation crumble, industry warns.

Property Council SA executive director Bruce Djite. Picture: Tom Huntley

Bruce Djite has urged the state government to capitalise on confidence in South Australia’s property market and accelerate Adelaide development, or risk losing reputation as an attractive and affordable state.

The Property Council SA executive director said the latest national Property Council industry sentiment survey showed South Australia as one of the country’s strongest-performing markets, posting the only above-trend confidence reading.

“South Australia continues to punch above its weight with industry expectations for growth, investment and job creation remaining positive,” Mr Djite said.

“South Australia continues to punch above its weight,” Bruce Djite said. Picture: Tom Huntley

But Mr Djite warned that unless the government let the private sector flourish, SA risked losing these advantages.

“Confidence alone won’t get homes built or cranes in the sky. The rubber must now hit the road.” he said.

“With an election in March, we will continue to work with all policymakers to adopt the solutions in our Ready, Set, Grow election platform. Because unless this happens, we risk sentiment not resulting in real projects.”

Affordability and housing supply ranked as the most pressing issues for the property industry at both a state and federal level, with Mr Djite saying SA’s reputation for affordability and its attractiveness to investors was under pressure.

“Our affordability advantage is no more, and the survey confirms what we already know: South Australia isn’t only losing the affordability advantage it once had, capital growth expectations continue to rise, meaning we are not developing anywhere near enough city shaping assets to keep up with growth,” he said.

The Property Council’s survey showed positive sentiment toward the state government’s handling of growth.

On one question in the survey, ‘Is the State/Territory Government where you primarily operate doing a good job planning and managing growth?’, SA’s government scored 77.9, the highest ever score on that question in the 15 year history of the survey.

“Industry absolutely welcomes the Premier’s ambitious, pro-growth agenda - it is now time for the government to let the private sector deliver the economic growth the state requires and the government is seeking to achieve,” Mr Djite said.

Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said on Wednesday that he believed the state government was driving investment due to its revenue streams.

Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis. Picture: Dean Martin

“Because we have our own source revenue, we can decide what we target to help grow the South Australian economy,” Mr Koutsantonis said.

“We want to add to supply. We can pay for that because we’ve got our own tax revenue to back it up.”

“Capital is mobile. Talent is mobile. Investors have choices and we are in a competitive global environment,” Mr Djite said.

“Opportunities will pass us by if we don’t take advantage of the current landscape.”

Mr Djite said the industry couldn’t afford to sit idle.

“This survey tells us the industry is ready.”

“The government now needs to get out of the way, so the industry can convert sentiment into action.”

Originally published as Property Council director Bruce Djite says high confidence in SA market must be met with action