Real estate Gold Coast: Residential building approvals fall to 10-year low as average sale price remains above $1m

Approvals of residential projects on the Gold Coast has fallen to a 10-year low as new data reveals something painful about housing prices which every buyer was dreading. DETAILS

Approvals of residential projects on the Gold Coast has fallen to a 10-year low as the average Gold Coast house sale settles in above $1m.

As pressure grows on the city’s housing sector, Colliers International’s April Gold Coast Market Overview report shows the median sale prices has remained stubbornly high in the face of a “severe” shortage of available land.

Just 3299 building approvals were issued between July 2023 and January 2024, compared to 5941 in the 2022-23 financial year.

Most approvals were granted in Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach-Burleigh, Ormeau-Oxenford, Robina, and Coolangatta.

Pragya Sharma Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

It found the median house sale price for the March quarter was $1.032m, returning to the standard of last year, excluding a slight dip in the December quarter.

Colliers research head Pragya Sharma, who wrote the report, said demand for Gold Coast property remained strong.

“After the median sale price for homes topped $1m for the first time in early 2023, the median has remained pretty much the same since then,” he said.

“This is despite the persistent challenge of housing affordability leading to a continuous decrease in property transactions over the year.

“The volume of sales across the board have been falling steadily since their peak in 2021,” she said.

“This trend has been fuelled by higher unaffordability due to rising interest rates and elevated cost-of-living pressures. But with inflation receding faster than anticipated, opening the way for the RBA to potentially look at lowering interest rates, we’re now starting to see more investors entering the market.

David Higgins, Colliers International director of residential.

“Should forecasts from some of our biggest banks predicting rate cuts as early as the second half of 2024 come to fruition, this shift is expected to reignite investor interest in the Gold Coast residential market.”

The report found the highest number of sales on the Coast during the first quarter of the year were for houses between $1m and $1.5m.

Colliers residential director David Higgins said he expected the trend to continue

“We expect that the median Gold Coast house sale price will continue to remain stable, especially with consideration to the driving forces of high construction costs, labour shortages, high debt costs impacting developments, limited supply of properties and high demand that are making existing properties more valuable,” he said.