Gold Coast apartment sales jump in Q3 2023: Urbis
The Gold Coast has experienced a dramatic uptick in apartment sales in positive signs for a market further constrained by supply due to rising construction costs, new data from Urbis has found.
Apartment sales rose to 470 over the third quarter of 2023, from just the 200 registered in the previous quarter.
Urbis Director Paul Riga said the majority of sales were centred around the traditional apartment precincts of Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach and Main Beach – while the remainder of sales along the Gold Coast were limited due to a lack of new projects.
“What the data tells us quite simply is that the demand for apartments has remained strong, with new developments harnessing the purchasers,” Riga said.
“This is great for the property market, underpins property prices but creates further problems with supply – meaning if new projects don’t get underway the supply will continue to diminish.”
Urbis noted a new trend, with three projects that were developed to be build to rent, switching to build to sell. One building went in the other direction.
There were five new project launches during Q3 2023, four in Broadbeach and Main Beach.
There were 1,770 apartments remaining for sale at the end of September – 82 per cent of which are in Surfers Paradise, Main Beach and Broadbeach.
The Gold Coast's north shore, coastal fringe, and southern beaches precinct all have limited supply, with just 264 apartments remaining for sale.
Highland CEO David Highland, whose Sydney-based company has expanded its operations to the Gold Coast and is marketing one of the city’s key apartment projects, Sammut Group’s Coast apartments under construction on Garfield Terrace at Surfers Paradise, said the data underpinned the resilience of the market.
“What this shows us is that demand for the Gold Coast has not diminished since the boom times brought about after the Covid pandemic,” Highland said.
“We are still seeing very strong interest from Sydneysiders keen to either move to the Gold Coast or at least take a stake in the Gold Coast’s future by purchasing an apartment here.
“The problem is that unless construction costs stabilise there may not be the stock required to meet demand, so buyers getting into the market now are in an enviable position where there may be considerable upside in the value of their apartments.”
Highland said the current inflationary pressures and construction costs were drawing buyers to quality developers which had the capacity to deliver.
“Projects under construction or with a builder locked in are certainly at a distinct advantage in the eyes of buyers. There’s a flight to quality – people want certainty in an uncertain environment where we don’t know where prices are going to."
Highland said it is encouraging people to get into the market sooner rather than later and it is perhaps why there has been an uptick in sales in the third quarter.
“We expect this will continue as we head into the peak selling periods for apartments over Christmas and New Year where hundreds of thousands of people will be holidaying on the Gold Coast and inspecting property.”