Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to GDI Property Group Half Year Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Stephen Gillard.
Thank you. Please go ahead.
Welcome everybody to our half year results. We've had a solid a lot of progress this year in relation to our developments. We've got the DA approved and hopefully have the building approval approved very shortly in relation to the WS2 development. The Mill Green, we've got the DA Logistics and we're happy to have in the near future, very imminent future, our DA approved on that. We've settled the Hay Street property.
We've had some solid leasing, although really we had the stage set GDI for a Perth recovery, but obviously with COVID etcetera, major businesses, small businesses have found it difficult making decisions. And we're sort of we're in a bit of a transition period, a transition period because we really needed some solid leasing. But we have done a number of deals, particularly level 11 and 12 in West Australia Square, a couple of new leases in Mill Green, Cabell Avenue. We've extended the major lease plus a number of leasing deals there. And at the moment, the inquiry rate and what we've got in Perth is very, very good.
It's really quite buoyant over there. And we've got a number of potential deals on the boil, some larger, some smaller. People are starting to make decisions. So it's really good. I mean, we've got a situation where there's really no supply and you've got a very old a lot of the older stock whilst the vacancy rate is high, a lot of the older stock is virtually impossible to lease and the A and B grade stock is under that 10% sort of level.
And so we're getting some good inquiry. We're getting a number of tenants moving back into the city. We've got a situation over there where a number of the projects were delayed and a number of things. The government's in surplus. Economic forecast is forecasting solid growth for WA.
We've had very good volumes in the commodities which has been good. And so we're really we're in a very good position. And we're quite excited of the future particularly in Perth. The Gold Coast property has been some very good leasing there. Townsville, we've got a we haven't had any progress.
Obviously, the governments, etcetera, couldn't get access to the borders. That's freeing up now and we've got some strong inquiries there as well. We if you look at the page, you can go to the page of the presentations in relation to some economic forecasts, we if you look at those seat job ads in WA, you'll see they're up nearly up 26.5 percent which is good. I mean you've got a situation where it's very hard to find builders, find staff to start a number of these projects. And now with the borders opened, a lot of people will move there.
You haven't got fly in, fly out. Your residential market's gone very strong. Your residential vacancy is now down below 1%. And they really need people to come over there and work to facilitate the growth in a number of the commodity projects and also the oil and gas price now a number of those projects are being reignited. If you look at the consumer sentiment, it's a 10 year highs in WA.
The infrastructure projects are significant and we've got forecast very strong GDP growth and net absorption in the office market improved. So really we are in a very good position. We're really sort of our vacancy has decreased a little bit, but we're really in a situation where we can really make a big inroads to that vacancy and capitalize on the strong WA growth. We so really that's all we've got to say in that sense. We're in a great position.
We've got a couple of big projects with potential very exciting profits for GDI. We've got in the funds management side, we're finding it difficult to buy particularly East Coast where we can't see any value at all. The car yards we purchased at 8%. Net, we believe we'll have significant whilst we didn't the valuations reflect that this time in the NTA, we see those and a number of our other valuations having significant growth in the future. So now look, I think I'll just pass it.
If there's anything to any questions, so we can have question time, please.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer Our first question comes from the line of Carlos Coraco from Renaissance Asset.
Steve, just wonder if you can provide a little bit more color around sort of leasing inquiry in Perth and what you're seeing in terms of requirements and how much has changed in the last 6 months or so?
Yes. I think you're fine. Yes. In the last 6 months, it has certainly improved. But in the last month or so, it's really ignited.
There's some strong leasing inquiry. There are companies who are growing. We've had some companies who have had to take additional space because of the COVID sort of situation workstations. Others are look, people have been treading water to make a decision. Obviously, it's been very uncertain times.
It's very difficult to enter into a lease and sign a document when in those uncertain times. So I think people are seeing some significant green shoots and people are getting a lot more confident. So at the moment, we've got the best inquiry we've had for probably 3 or 4 or 5 years currently in regard to all of our number of properties. So it's big, small, there's a number of very large, we're dealing with a number of multinationals and Australian companies in relation to 1 Mill Street. We're getting some solid inquiry in relation to WS2 and West Australia Square, 1 Adelaide Terrace.
At 5 Mill Street, we've got a lot of small inquiries. Hopefully, we can finalize some deals in there. We've done a full floor to Langero Rourke. And a lot of these companies are looking to take additional space as well. So, but we're really very it's the best we've been for at least 6 or 8 months in regard to confidence of doing leasing deals.
And there's potentially a lot of growth in the size of these tenants as these projects and a number of things start to snowball in Perth. There's so it's been very, very good.
It's Dave Williams, Carlos. Just on 5 Mill and that smaller sort of sub-five 100 meter tenant, they were really absent from the market in the middle of last year, obviously, with COVID and not really knowing what their businesses are going to look like. We've now got particularly at 5 millimeters we've got tenants competing for suites that we have. So we've got a couple of suites with more than 1 tenant running at them. And we're doing it at we have not dropped rates and we have not increased incentive.
So that's a really pleasing sign. And that wasn't there 6 months ago certainly.
Right. And in Townsville, what are your prospects there in terms of leasing up the vacancy in that property?
Look, we had very strong inquiry from the federal government. Basically, we're going to take the space. However, for 6 months, I haven't been able to get up there. I'm going to Townsville on Thursday. So look, we've got some good solid inquiry in regard from the federal government and also from state government.
We've been absolutely hamstrung by the border closures. People from Canberra getting up there. There's a number of departments which are going to move into Townsville as they stated after the election. So look, I think within the next few months we'll have hopefully some nice green shoots in Townsville. So it's a matter of people getting up there and expecting and be able to facilitate a deal.
With the K yards that we had, the big growth has been solid. And you'll see that so look, in regard to bigger inquiry, we've really got the best spots for bigger inquiry. And a lot of those tenants have been sort of treading water, but now they're really out. And we're getting a lot of tenants wanting signage on buildings as well, which is good. And so look, we're seeing some very good we're very comfortable.
Right.
And final one for me. The what are some how would you characterize investor demand for Cavill Avenue?
Well, look, we've got recently had offers on that building. We've got a number of people who would buy that building. We've got the major tenant, which is Echo, have got wanting more space or moved around. They've been very reluctant to sign a lease because in the hotel market, heck, could you sign an extended lease or do things there? But I'm having a meeting this week and over the next few weeks, we hope to finalize something there.
We've had a number of smaller tenants where our incentives are in the 14% to 14% net. There, we're getting a lot of tenants perhaps moving from Brisbane. The vacancy in the building, we've had bells move out, but there's a lot of inquiry there. We hope to have that building full. And we've sort of held on because it's still below replacement cost.
And but I'd say this year, we will have that off the balance sheet.
Great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you so much.
Well, look, I think we might wrap that up. But if there's any questions, if you could let us know. But we're always we can come and do presentations or the phone is always open to give us a call and run through these results in more detail. It's difficult to sort of go right through these on a phone call. So, I'd like to thank you all very much for being on our call and supporting GDI.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. And that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all now disconnect.