A wave of interstate investors snapping up luxury beachfront units off-the-plan has lifted the average price of a new Gold Coast apartment by $600,000 in just six months, new figures from research house Urbis show.
Over the March quarter, the weighted average price of a Gold Coast apartment reached a new high of $1.73 million – up from $1.13 million in the September quarter – as 240 sales were recorded.
A growing focus among developers to offer larger apartments on prime ocean-fronting sites to appeal to a growing cohort of cashed-up interstate buyers, as well as wealthy local downsizers, has lifted prices across the board.
The latest March quarter figures from Urbis show interstate investors have become the biggest driver of new apartment sales on the Gold Coast, with a 38 per cent share of the market. Owner-occupiers accounted for 29 per cent of sales, followed by local investors (20 per cent) and offshore buyers (13 per cent).
“This is a significant shift from the trend of recent years when we saw an all-time high of 65 per cent owner-occupier sales in 2020 during the peak of the pandemic,” said Urbis director Paul Riga.
“While the owner-occupier market remains strong, the latest quarter possibly signals a return to long-terms trends, as before 2016 owner occupiers accounted for 30 per cent of sales.”
A lack of new supply coupled with strong ongoing demand is likely to keep prices rising. Mr Riga said just two new projects yielding a total of 112 apartments launched during the first quarter of 2024.
At the same time, some projects are being pulled from the market due to a blowout in construction costs, even after generating significant pre-sales.
Originally published by Larry Schlesinger in the Australian Financial Review. View article online HERE.