Gold Coast riding out 2022/23 property correction: Colliers report
The Gold Coast property market is holding up considerably better than some of its southern counterparts, recent research conducted by national project marketing agency Colliers found.
Colliers' latest Market Overview has revealed that the median house price on the Gold Coast has only dropped by $15,000, or -1.5 per cent, to reach $925,000 by the end of 2022 - down from the $940,000 reported by Colliers previously at the peak of the market in June last year.
This is in stark contrast to the rest of the country, where national house prices have fallen more than five times the rate of the Gold Coast.
The report highlights that Gold Coast's property market has remained relatively stable despite the national market experiencing a record fall of 8.4 per cent in CoreLogic's Daily Home Value Index from May last year until January 7 this year.
Colliers’ Gold Coast director-in-charge Steven King said the latest data, supported by continued growth in the city’s commercial property sector, demonstrates that Gold Coast property prices are holding firm amid volatile conditions nationally.
“The latest population forecasts, the strength of the Gold Coast’s employment market and the massive investment in infrastructure across the city is providing the local property market with remarkable resilience,” King said.
“Certainly, we’re seeing challenges across the board, driven by higher construction costs and labour constraints causing ongoing housing supply issues, but the Gold Coast is still firing on all cylinders from an economic perspective which will continue to support the residential and commercial sectors in the near term.”
The Colliers Market Overview report for February 2023 offers a robust view of the Gold Coast property market with resilience in residential property spilling over into the office, industrial and retail sectors.
The report forecasts the Gold Coast economy will grow four per cent a year over the next three years, making it an economic hotspot in comparison to the Reserve Bank’s estimates of 1.5 per cent growth in the national economy in 2023 and 2024.
Employment on the Gold Coast grew by one per cent over the year, keeping the jobless rate at 2.9 per cent, well below the national rate of 3.7 per cent.
“The Gold Coast employment market is among the tightest in the country, with the jobs market well supported by new businesses relocating to the city to capitalise on emerging growth opportunities,” said King.
Among the key metrics revealed in the Colliers report is the massive take-up of office space on the Gold Coast over the past two years amid low construction activity in the sector.
The Colliers report notes that retail rents on the Gold Coast have risen by 15 to 20 per cent on average over the year due to rising occupancies, population growth, limited new supply, and higher construction costs.
Supporting the Colliers report’s growth forecasts are projections of massive population increases for key Gold Coast suburbs over the next two decades.
The city’s northern and western suburbs will sustain the highest growth as the city heads towards a population of nearly one million people by 2041 – an increase of 48 per cent from current levels.
Ormeau-Oxenford will make up most of that population expansion with another 114,000 people expected to live there by 2041. Coomera's population is likely to almost triple, while Worongary-Tallai, Southport-North, and Mermaid Beach-Broadbeach are each expected to double in population.
“These growth forecasts underpin the pace of activity we are currently experiencing across each of the key property categories,” said King.
“The high growth areas to the north and west are likely to drive sustained demand for new developments such as retail to service these areas, as well as industrial and commercial areas to provide key local employments nodes.”