There's good times ahead: Andrew Winter

GUEST OBSERVER

I hate to use the phrase but I love the Gold Coast lifestyle.

Not in any particular order but from the lack of traffic chaos, the awesome climate and the wonderful coastline, stunning hinterland and great places to eat.

The geography, location and natural landscape are right.

Nobby Beach is a family favourite, I love Burleigh and Currumbin beaches.

Inland you can’t beat time at Tamborine Mountain or Springbrook.

Then there is Paradise Point, Main Beach and The Spit, not forgetting the whole of the Broadwater/Jumpinpin and the place my family chooses to call home, Sanctuary Cove.

There’s great places to eat all over the coast now, some of the people aren’t bad either. 

For an area that started its growth in the 1960s/70s/80s so much of the architecture, let’s be honest, is pretty awful.

Luckily the past 15 years or so has seen real improvements in architectural styles whether it is an apartment building, single homes or the emerging townhouse/terrace type housing.

The Gold Coast grew from virtually nothing to over half-a-million in only four or five decades. This was fuelled by tourism, holiday homes and overseas home buyers and retirees.

Suddenly we have this substantial population — sixth in the country and no core industries or major sources of employment other than tourism which is great when the dollar is weaker as it is now, but that can create an almost never ending cycle of good and bad times.

Yes, boat building is back, but that again is an industry with highs and lows, so is construction. We need back-up plans for the inevitable quiet times of the future.

A hard task and I cannot offer any real solutions, but here is something political — sorry to the ‘no’ campaigners regarding the cruse ship terminal, but the latest offshore proposal to me is fantastic and an absolute must.

There is no doubt and it is very easy to define a market in recovery mode.

You review homes that sold at peak prices in previous years — that price then became unachievable for many years.

Only when the value of that same home has reached that former peak and moved slightly ahead can you be sure you are in recovery mode.

Right now across the Coast there are many homeowners that will happily confirm this.

So will we see growth? I believe so.

There’s good times ahead.

Andrew Winter writes columns for the News Ltd papers on real estate, with the comments taken from questions posed by the Gold Coast Bulletin on January 2.

Andrew Winter is presenter, Selling Houses Australia presenter.

Andrew Winter says he's obsessed with houses. With 25 years experience in the property trade, he believes that if you haven’t sold your house within two months then you’re doing something wrong.

Starting his career in a real estate agency at the tender age of 17, Andrew sold his first home within a matter of months. He then went on to spend some years with a firm of Chartered Surveyors fine tuning his house selling skills, but combining it with inside knowledge of construction, structural issues, building faults and problems.

To further expand his career he made the move to Central London where he sold apartments and townhouses in the famous Baker Street and Regents Park areas. Whilst selling properties in the redeveloped Canary Wharf area in London and Kent, his career gained an added angle – he was chosen to present and research a new TV program about his favourite subject “Selling Houses”. Over the last eleven years the program has gone from strength to strength both in the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries worldwide.

Andrew and his family moved to Australia in 2005.