Alice market still strong

THE residential market in Alice Springs is thriving with increases in house and unit sales, according to a new report.

The Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory’s (REINT) Real Estate Local market report for December 2019 found Alice Springs’ house sales volume increased by 8.6 per cent.

Unit sales jumped by 46.7 per cent, while the average rent for a three-bedroom house increased by 2.9 per cent to $535.

REINT chief executive Quentin Kilian said the market’s affordability drove the increases. “Alice Springs has generally been a quite buoyant and strong market for the last couple of years,” he said.

“The pricing is at a point where people look at it and say ‘that’s affordable, I can buy into that marketplace’.

“The first homebuyer activity in the last year and a half to two years, that has been a very strong underpinning for the market.

“Smaller markets like that, because they don’t have a great deal of stock, when the opportunity presents itself homebuyers and investors look at the opportunities and secure them.”

Mr Kilian said the biggest drawcard to Alice Springs for investors was the rental market, with the yield at 6.8 per cent for a two-bedroom unit and 6.2 per cent for a threebedroom house.

“Talking to our members, we are seeing a good return on interstate investors to the market,” he said.

“It’s predominantly locals and interstate investors and local investors seeing opportunity in the market to get in at prices that are very reasonable for the stock they’re getting.”

He anticipated the market would remain consistent this year but said it could easily change. “While Alice is certainly a more stable market than say Katherine or Tennant Creek, the smaller the market the more volatile,” he said.

“It can be impacted quite rapidly by increases in population or a major project.”

LJ Hooker Alice Springs sales representative Gail Tuxworth said the rental market was flourishing.

“People are not committed long term, a lot are transient here so the demand is quite high for rentals,” she said.

Ms Tuxworth said there were a combination of buyers.

“There’s a good selection of first homebuyers, people upgrading, people coming from interstate.”