What We’re Expecting In 2025

Welcome to the New year! The GPS Investment Fund Ltd (GPS) team is back in full swing as of January 2nd (with the exception of a few lucky team members still enjoying the Winter Wonderland of the Northern Hemisphere). We hope you all had a wonderful, safe, and not too hot festive season!

Each January, we tend to pen an overview of what we’re expecting for the year to come. In 2025, GPS has just as much as ever to draw from on the year prior.

We had a year where COVID setbacks feel to truly be fading, preparation for 2032 Olympics appears to be looming, the South East Queensland population growth showed no signed of slowing down, and our construction industry is still jogging to catch up.

As new projects fall into place in our pipeline, we wanted to give you a quick rundown of what we, in the office, are prepping for in 2025:

1. GPS is in the right place at the right time
   Our lending criteria has always been; South East Queensland (within a 2hr drive), townhouse and unit projects. And as the Queensland Government has forecast, South East Queensland is set to hit population amounts of up to 6M people in the next 20 years, double what we have now! As our area continues to experience population growth, demand for housing will continue to rise, and in the established urban areas we lend to, this type of growth will best be served by townhouse and unit projects.
   
2. Just because a DA is approved, doesn’t mean the project is guaranteed
   Amongst so many active construction projects, both private and commercial, builder demand is at an all time high, which means labour costs are too. This is why we’ve always aimed to be ahead of the game by focusing on quality over quantity. GPS greatly values our many long-standing relationships with builder-developers, who have extended networks of trade work connections and working knowledges of project needs. In the case of current labour demand, we know that continuing to work with our repeat borrowers and builder-developers means working with people who know how to take a Development Approval and make it a reality!
   
3. The risk curve has never been higher, and we’re not riding the wave
   With so much demand and government support for housing, as well as new players in the game, it’s easy as a lender to be caught up in the possibility that a risker project could work. GPS has never been an unnecessary risk taker, it’s a mentality that took us through major market disruptions like the GFC and COVID, and we’re not changing that approach now! Between ‘game changing’ projects, there’s still a wealth of perfectly conventional products which are just as needed as a 50-storey complexes in areas growing just as fast. We know our market, and we’re not deviating any time soon. And, lastly;
   
4. Richard will be taking time to do what he does best, get loans
   With so much opportunity on the horizon, Richard is taking a driver’s seat this year to work directly with our Portfolio Managers (including his daughter, Marnie, who’s back on deck with GPS as of late 2024). Richard is, of course, very much still around and available to chat at any time. But, for the day-to-day this year, we can ensure you that he’s extremely busy working in your best interest, which is guiding our Portfolio Managers through his 30+ years of industry connections and lending knowledge to ensuring that the loans we’re securing are not just loans that GPS wants, but loans that you want.