(Newswire.net – August 26, 2013) Gold Coast, Australia – Local and national sources have reported that sales and prices of Gold Coast real estate have steadily increased after bottoming out during the first half of 2013.
Demand has increased so much that stock is low on houses for sale in Gold Coast at $700,000 and lower while values of homes in the $1 million to $2 million range have already risen to levels equal to those of last year.
The Gold Coast real estate situation came to a head last January when Deputy Director-General David Eades told a joke at a Brisbane business function. Eades asked, “What’s the difference between herpes and the Gold Coast property market?” The answer he provided, “You can fix herpes,” hit a little too close to home, and he was forced to apologize after being flooded with complaints from Gold Coast residents and Mayor Tom Tate.
Whether this incident directly led to the turnaround is still up for debate, but less than six months later, in June 2013, RP Data Australia released an analysis showing that sales were on the rise and that the median selling price was much stronger compared to statistics from June 2012. Specifically, 2,049 fewer properties were listed for sale, including 2,624 fewer homes in the $300,000 to $499,000 range.
Two months later, in August, Todd White’s Residential Month In Review corroborated RP Data Australia’s assessment of houses for sale Gold Coast, reporting “a significant increase of buyers in the marketplace compared to the past 12 months.”
The findings reported in Todd White’s Residential Month In Review included agents experiencing increased traffic during open houses and much lower stock levels of homes valued at $700,000 or less. In addition, more investors had entered the market, which has leveled sales and values of Gold Coast real estate in the $1 million to $2 million price range.
Dane Atherton, managing director of Harcourts Coastal, also reported increased sales in the lower and middle housing sectors. Atherton is predicting price growth for Gold Coast real estate in the immediate future because the backlog of stock is now clear and “listings are more competitive.”
Reports are not only coming in from Gold Coast real estate agents but also from homeowners. Several homeowners attempting to sell their homes were warned that the process could take a year or longer, but they were pleasantly surprised to find buyers meeting their asking prices in only a matter of weeks.
Although these reports are extremely promising, real estate Gold Coast has not quite fully emerged from the mire. According to a story in the Property Observer, part of the problem is that city officials are not focusing on owner-occupied housing for typical residents and are, instead, developing high-rise apartment buildings.
At one time, the city’s real estate market was thought to be unstoppable, and developers flooded the market with Gold Coast apartments. Now that the market is looking up, agents are worried that high-rise developers will be back, and the cycle will begin anew.