Pick up a bargain: places where property prices have dropped

Queensland’s housing market is booming. But there are still some sweet spots where properties are selling at a loss. Here are our top 20 suburbs where buyers have picked up a bargain.

Queensland’s housing market is booming — from quick sales turnarounds to massive price growth across the southeast corner, buyers are paying premium prices.

With many people working from home, even regional and rural house prices have started to rise as many make a sea-change and head out of the cities.

Data from real estate analysts CoreLogic for the March quarter showed only a handful of Queensland suburbs where prices remained static and even fewer where resales values dropped.

One man’s loss is another man’s gain

That’s good news for sellers who have been able to offload properties for a profit faster than usual turnarounds.

But for buyers it means looking to places out west or up north or at a unit to pick up a bargain from a drop in sales prices.

Biloela was one of the areas in Queensland where properties sold for less over the past quarter.

Regional suburbs such as Biloela, Murgon in Wide Bay, Wongaling Beach in Cairns, Eton in Mackay, Townsville’s Belgian Gardens, Bohle and Hyde Park, were where houses sold for under the median house value.

CoreLogic analysed approximately 98,000 resales across Australia for the quarter and found regional Australia continued its downward trend of loss-making resales.

Anstead was the only Brisbane suburb where house values fell in the three months to July and the decline was minor at 0.3 per cent.

On the whole, the housing market was buoyant but units experienced weaker prices.

The highest instance of loss-making sales in southeast Queensland was in the Brisbane council region, where 12.9 per cent of sales were at a loss during the March 2021 quarter, up 0.1 per cent (10 basis points) on the previous quarter, according to Corelogic’s Pain and Gain Report.

CoreLogic said about 67 per cent of those were investor-owned units.

Properties in Townsville’s Belgian Gardens, Bohle and Hyde Park along with South Townsville were included in the suburbs where properties sold for losses.

Units were more than twice as likely to sell at a loss as houses, and owner occupiers enjoyed a higher incidence of profitability than investors.

Here are our top 20 “bargain basement” suburbs where median resale prices fell for units.

Bethania, on the Logan River, was where unit properties sold for losses in the past quarter.

Top of the CoreLogic list was units in Bethania, where the median sales value was down 8.8 per cent to a median price of $293,354.

That was followed by Loganlea, where there was a 7.9 per cent drop in unit values over the past year with the median value at $277,947.

Waterford West also suffered a 7.4 per cent drop in unit value over the past year with the suburb posting a $191,608 median value.

In Ipswich, Raceview units had a 3.6 per cent drop in value with Fitzgibbon, Taigum, Rothwell Waterford, Zillmere and Brisbane City all recording lower values over the year.

Units in Brisbane experienced a drop in values over the quarter.

The Loganlea-Carbrook region recorded the most suburbs in the weakest performing list, followed by Chermside, Sandgate and Brisbane inner city.

CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless said the unit price slump could be due to a shift away from higher density housing during the pandemic or increased popularity of working from home.

“The suburbs featured in the top 20 list are from a diverse array of areas around Brisbane including inner city locations through to suburbs around the outer fringe,” Mr Lawless said.

“The softer conditions may be associated with supply levels outweighing demand.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean unit supply in these areas is high; some of these markets are likely to be experiencing low demand for medium-to-high density styles of housing as preferences shift towards detached housing options.”

But not all unit markets across Brisbane were weak with Cleveland unit values up 37.1 per cent over the past years, Point Lookout unit values up 35.2 per cent and Ormiston unit values up 29.3 per cent.