The announcement of a major subdivision outside the Queensland town of Gatton achieves in one project what hotspotting.com.au recently predicted was likely to happen - a doubling in the size of the town.

Gatton, a town of 9,000 residents west of Ipswich on the road to Toowoomba, is to be the site for a multi-stage $500 million development of a new prisons complex. The Queensland Hotspots report for sale on this website has predicted the number of employees eventually working at the complex will almost double the size of the town.

And yesterday developers Trinity and Consolidated Properties announced they had paid $17 million for a 355-hectare site on the outskirts of Gatton to develop a $300 million master-planned estate, eventually to accommodate 2,200 new homes (staged over the next 20 years).

Woodlands Rise will effectively double the size of the town, according to a report in the Toowoomba Chronicle. The developers say they have been attracted by the new prisons complex and the planned expansion of the University of Queensland campus just outside the town.

Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth have all had exceptional rises in residential rents in 2007, according to the Quarterly Domain-APM Rental Series report.

The four cities recorded rises of 17% or more in the median weekly asking rent for houses in the year to December. There were similar rises in rents for apartments in those cities, with Perth topping the list with a 25% increase in apartment rents. Sydney and Brisbane had rent rises above 10% for both houses and units.

The strong growth in rents has pushed up gross rental returns in most major cities over the past 12 months. The best rent returns on houses are found in Hobart, where the typical gross rental yield is 5%. Most other big cities have gross yields in the 4% to 4.5% range, although Perth remains well below 4%.

Typical rental returns for units in Canberra and Darwin are close to 6%, according to the Domain-APM Rental Series, with Sydney returning 5% and most other major cities around 4.8%.

However, Michael McNamara of APM says the rental squeeze appears to be easing and the rental markets stabilising after a year of very strong growth. ?There are indications that the run of strong growth in rental values is running out of puff - for now,? he says.

Rents continue to rise Australia-wide, pressured by rising house prices, a lack of new home construction and cautious investors, according to the latest report from Mortgage Choice and the Real Estate Institute of Australia.

The report finds that vacancy rates across the nation are at historic lows, averaging 1.9% in the September quarter. REIA president Noel Dyett says a vacancy rate below 3% is regarded as an under-supply.

House rents have risen 9.3% in Sydney and 10.6% in Melbourne, but Darwin (where the vacancy rate is below 1%) is the most expensive city for tenants, with the median three-bedroom house rent up 34% to $440 a week over the past 12 months.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh today launched the $1.7 billion North Bank project, to take shape on the Brisbane River in central Brisbane over the next 12 years.

North Bank will include both commercial and residential elements, as well as cafes, bikeways, a ferry terminal and an Olympic sized swimming pool, and will begin construction in mid-2008.

Described as a city playground to rival Sydney?s Darling Harbour, the North Bank precinct will be located between Victoria Bridge and Alice Street in central Brisbane - and will extend 80 metres over the waters of the Brisbane River.

?It will be a place where people can live, work and play,? says Bligh, adding that all buildings in the precinct will have to meet a minimum five-star green rating in design and construction.

Stage one is expected to be completed within four years.

There is growing evidence that buyers will pay more for environmentally-sustainable homes, according to Victoria?s Building Commission.

A new ?pulse survey? by the commission has found that 86% of consumers highly value sustainable building.

Building Commissioner Tony Arnel says the five-star standard now requires all new homes in Victoria to include a greater range of energy efficiency and water-saving features that increase comfort and reduce energy bills.

?The market is now demanding greener homes with many new housing estates currently building beyond five-star regulations,? he says.

Arnel says that as the popularity of green homes rises, re-sale values are expected to increase. ?This gives green homes even greater value,? he says. ?In the ACT, vendors are required to disclose the energy rating of their homes at point-of-sale. Sales data shows that energy-efficient homes are worth more.?