Mount Gambier houses selling for well above asking price as real estate demand outstrips supply
From investors and downsizers to first home buyers, everyone is trying to tap into SA’s hottest regional real estate market – Mount Gambier.
Mount Gambier
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A surge of house sales in Mount Gambier has seen the regional city top South Australia’s property sales according to data from realestate.com.au.
Over the past 12 months 453 homes have sold for a median price $269,000 in the South East city and Limestone Coast Real Estate sales consultant Bianca Taylor was not surprised.
From investors and downsizers to those buying their first or their forever home, she said there were no clear trends.
Ms Taylor said buyers have ranged from locals and those returning home, to people buying into the region from throughout the state or interstate.
As demand out strips supply, Ms Taylor said she was regularly seeing properties sell for $10,000 to $20,000 above asking price.
“There are more buyers than there are properties. That’s creating a lot of competition which in turn is allowing vendors to achieve a higher figure than once expected,” she said.
“Properties that I thought would have come in around that $170,000-180,000 before COVID supply and demand happened are now getting more like $190,000-$200,000.
“Properties that we probably would have thought sit around that around 300,000 are getting more like $310,000-312,000.”
In the past three to four months, Ms Taylor has noticed demand skyrocket driven by people re-evaluating their priorities and choosing to return home or relocate to the South East.
“COVID has made people reassess what’s important,” she said.
“Were extremely lucky, I feel like we’ve generated a lot of interest to our region and we’re going to have a lot of people coming here to live and invest and in turn, that’s going to help grow our region.”
Combined with savings that would have been spent on travel, access to superannuation, low interest rates and first home buyers grants, Ms Taylor said she believed the Federal Government’s HomeBuilder scheme had stimulated the industry.
With Mount Gambier recording the highest rates of regional take up of the grant, land sales have also increased.
“When the building grants first started to unravel I think about 25 vacant pieces of land went under contract within like a week or so,” Ms Taylor said.
“A couple of months ago there wasn’t as much land available because everyone wanted to secure their piece of dirt.
“However, a few other land owners have seen an opportunity here and have hurried up their subdivision process and subdivided and yeah have opened it up to the market so I think it’s all starting to steady itself now.”
Ms Taylor said investors and owner occupiers alike were motivated by the security seen property investment in the city.
“It’s very, very rare to go backwards in terms of value with property here in Mount Gambier we’ve always seen a slight incline we may not increase by $50,000 or $100,000 at a time however we’ve always stayed on that steady incline,” she said.
“Investors that are thriving at the idea the fact that they can buy property and there are so many tenants, because it’s very similar in the rental sector at the minute that supply and demand.”
With more tenants than property, Limestone Coast Real Estate property manager Sophie Johnson said the city was experiencing a rental shortage.
“Vacancy rates are probably the lowest we’ve ever seen, personally our agency’s at zero per cent vacancy rates, all of our properties are tenanted,” Ms Johnson said.
“Landlords are in a position where they can increase rents probably higher that what we’ve maybe seen in the past.
“Mount Gambier is not a town that’s ever going to have exorbitant prices but it is higher than what we’ve been able to achieve in the past it’s simply supply and demand.”