Units for sale hit new low
THE Gold Coast will run out of units to sell in just over two months if new stock does not flood the market, a new report shows.
A Gold Coast apartment essentials report by property consulting firm Urbis reveals more units changed hands in the first nine months of this year than any other year on record.
The city has a 2.2-month supply of units on the market, almost half the 4.2 months recorded for the March-June quarter. Just 517 apartments remained for sale at the end of September, down from 624 at the end of June. At the end of June 2018 there were 2594.
Urbis senior consultant Lynda Campbell said the Gold Coast apartment market had “entered new territory”.
“Record-high demand is meeting record low supply, which has led to the most acute shortage of new apartments ever experienced on the Gold Coast.
“We have never seen a market as tight as this since we started keeping track of demand for new apartments at the end of 2013.
“Sales in the third quarter picked up significantly compared to the June quarter, although they were slightly lower than the record first quarter when we saw 742 sales,” Ms Campbell said.
In the September quarter, 690 apartments sold, bringing the year’s total so far to 1882.
This figure has already eclipsed the previous full-year record of 1556 sales in 2016.
Owner-occupiers accounted for 61 per cent of sales in the September quarter.
The weighted average sale
price fell to $883,478, slightly down from the $1m-plus figures of the first two quarters of the year.
According to the report, nine new projects comprising 774 apartments were launched in the September quarter, two of which sold out within three months. They were among 16 projects that sold out during the quarter.
In a clear sign of diminishing supply, Urbis is monitoring 59 new developments across the city, down from a high of 84 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Ms Campbell said she expected the supply issues to ease once a range of largescale developments were completed in 2022.
“All Gold Coast precincts are in major undersupply, and some areas will remain so despite a number of big projects in the wings expected to be launched over the next three to nine months,” she said.
“The market has been dominated by smaller-scale projects with larger apartments and higher price points over the last two years.
“However, this could be about to change with several large-scale projects close to launching with a different product offering to meet demand,” Ms Campbell said.