Land banking

I have noticed an increasing number of agents advertising the larger blocks as "suitable to start your own landbank".

How absurd! Thought you might be interested in the following information on "Landbanks".

John McCarthy of the Courier Mail reports, Councils have threatened to take developers to the competition watchdog over practices they claim force up the cost of housing in Queensland.

The Local Government Association yesterday started a Dob in a Developer campaign aimed at gathering detailed information on land banking - or holding land back from the market until prices rise.

The campaign was labelled by the industry as a stunt to divert attention from councils' own inefficiencies.

The public fight comes as the State Government reviews southeast Queensland's urban boundaries, and coincided with the release of figures showing land supply on the Gold Coast would be depleted by 2015.

But the LGAQ said there was plenty of land in the hands of a few companies and pointed to findings by the State Government that there were 55,000 lots available to be developed in the southeast. "We are greatly concerned that the excesses of a minority of property developers need to be reined in," LGAQ president Paul Bell said.

The LGAQ also has the support of councils to gather data on who owns undeveloped land. It also started its own website (www.dobinadeveloper.com) for the public to supply information.

"The objective of the survey is to determine the extent to which one or two major developers in each growth area control the available stock of land," a briefing paper on the LGAQ campaign said.

Findings could be referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Property Council executive director Steve Greenwood said councils were still the biggest hurdle in land supply, with development applications taking too long and infrastructure costs being too high.

He said no company could afford to hold back land from the market for an extended period.