Gladstone's epic rental drop the last for rollercoaster market

GLADSTONE took the crown for the state with its huge drop in rental prices this year, but experts have said times are changing

A TRIFECTA of southern investors circling, homes selling and vacancy rates dropping is the fix for our rental market.

Gladstone's rental prices took the largest drop in Queensland between the financial years of 2016 and 17, with two-bedroom units taking an 18.8% dive to a median price of $130 per week and three-bedroom homes dropping 14.3% to $180pw.

According to the Residential Tenancies Authority's annual report Gladstone's was the largest drop between the two years by more than 5%.

Leading resource industry and property market observer Terry Ryder. Photo Contributed. Picture: Contributed

Property analyst Terry Ryder said ill-informed developers, unaware thousands of construction workers bound for Curtis Island in 2012 would live on the island, were largely to blame.

"You could say the developers didn't do their homework .... They didn't realise the bulk of the jobs didn't require rental accommodation (because workers were staying in camps)," he said.

The former real estate journalist and founder of property site Hotspotting said the pain was over for Gladstone, noting the gradual drop in vacancy rates from 10% to 4%.

Ray White Gladstone director Andrew Allen agreed the housing boom, created during the construction of the three $70-billion LNG plants, was when it all went wrong for the property market.

"Primarily property investors were hurt (by the rental downturn) and then the secondary pain was the local home owners," he said.

Ray White Gladstone director Andrew Allen. . Picture: Mike Richards GLA080617SOLD

"(They) now find themselves in the situation where the home isn't worth what they paid for it."

Mr Allen is confident next year's data will look different with southern investors breaking a five-year hiatus on Gladstone's property market. He said in the past four months his agency had sold 45 homes, compared to 60 homes in 2016.

"We're a long way from seeing the prices that were here five years ago, but you can see the beginnings of the recovery," he said.

Originally published as Gladstone's epic rental drop the last for rollercoaster market