Gold Coast rental vacancies rise, prices stabilise, for first time in months

New data has shown a remarkable shift in the Gold Coast’s ultra-tight rental market, with a big change recorded in almost every suburb. SEE OUR FULL SUBURB-BY-SUBURB GUIDE

EXPERTS say the Gold Coast’s extraordinary rental crisis may have passed its peak, with new data showing vacancy rates rising in almost every Gold Coast suburb.

Average weekly rental costs are also beginning to fall in many areas as investors return to the market, providing a much-needed boost to supply.

Data from SQM research shows vacancy rates in the north of the city had risen to an average of 0.9 per cent in September, having been at 0.4 per cent rate for much of the year.

In one suburb, the rate is at two per cent.

Prices are also showing signs of stabilising. In the southern Gold Coast, average weekly rental costs for houses were at $949 in October, down ten per cent from a $1055 peak reached three months earlier. The cost of renting a two-bed unit in the area was also down 11 per cent in the same period.

SQM Managing Director Louis Christopher.

SQM Research Managing Director Louis Christopher said the data showed evidence that the rental market was “turning a corner” on the Gold Coast.

“Potentially we’re seeing a peak in the rents after what’s been an unprecedented rise in rental activity on the Gold Coast,” Mr Christopher said.

“... You look at the south end of the Gold Coast, the rests have essentially peaked. They peaked in late July and you can argue they have been falling since.”

Mr Christopher said there was normally a “seasonal impact” on the Gold Coast which caused vacancy rates to rise in winter and trend down again in summer, but that effect had been absent in the last two years amid a surge in interstate migration.

“What we could be seeing now is a return to more normal conditions where the region is more influenced by seasonal factors,” Mr Christopher said.

“What we could also be seeing is people moving back to Sydney and Melbourne. They’ve tried the sea change, their employer is now asking them to come back into the office and that means them needing to come back into the capital cities.”

While still well below healthy levels, the vacancy rate has risen in every Gold Coast suburb bar the 4218 postcode covering Broadbeach and Mermaid Beach, where it has remained stable at 0.7 per cent.

The lowest vacancy rate is in Southport, where it is 0.2 per cent – though even that is a rise on the 0.1 per cent recorded in June,

The biggest is in the 4212 postcode, which covers Helensvale and Hope Island. SQM data shows the rate there now sits at two per cent, having been at 0.8 per cent earlier this year.

LJ Hooker Pacific Pines, Helensvale and Hope Island Principal Pascal Pierre.

LJ Hooker’s Pascal Pierre – who is Principal at its Helensvale, Pacific Pines and Hope Island branches – said availability of rentals had been boosted because investors had returned to the market.

“There has been some improvement. We are finding that we have a few more properties available,” Mr Pierre said.

“With the slowdown in the market across the board due to the interest rate raises and the like, what it has provided, especially in bread and butter areas of the Gold Coast like Pacific Pines, Oxenford and Helensvale, is that we’re finding a lot more investors are coming back into the market.”

Mr Pierre said it was the reverse of what had been happening during the market’s peak, when properties were being sold sight unseen for high sums, encouraging existing investors to cash out.

“I called it a frenzy,” he said. “It was borderline ridiculous what was happening.

Some properties around here, you’d get people putting offers in without seeing a property.

“But that caused its own issues. A lot of our older investors cashed out. Their properties almost doubled in value overnight. And that’s what’s caused the rental shortage.”

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