Report reveals encouraging signs for owners and investors

Gloom surrounding the Gladstone land market could be showing signs of lifting.

Views from South Gladstone for Real Estate. Picture: Mike Richards GLA120117RESG

THE gloom surrounding the Gladstone land market could be showing signs of lifting, with an uptick in sales volume and limited new supply providing the opportunity for existing stock to be absorbed according to Ray White's latest Between the Lines report.

Ray White's head of research Vanessa Rader said there has been much-needed downward momentum regarding the advancement of development of vacant land over the past five years.

"This slow addition of stock has been welcomed by the local market with the need to absorb these existing high stock levels,” Ms Rader said.

"The Gladstone Local Government Area has a further 1520ha of broadacre land suitable for land subdivision which could yield over 8000 new lots.

"Data collected by Ray White Commercial shows there are currently over 400 lots registered and available for sale, with a further 300 completed, but yet to be registered.

"This high volume of available stock coupled with the slow sales rate has taken a toll on the median values achieved for both vacant land, and house and land packages in the region,” Ms Rader said.

Ray White Commercial Gladstone director Andrew Allen said vacant land sales and limited lot approvals and lot registrations in the past 12 months have provided positivity for the market.

Kirkwood for Real Estate, October 13, 2016. Picture: Mike Richards GLA

"It's encouraging to see lot registrations and lot approvals are down on five and 10-year averages, giving the market time to continue to recover,” Mr Allen said.

"Positivity really lies in the vacant land sales, where we saw a total of 148 over the past 12 months, showing an increase of 55.79 per cent.

"The slowdown in approvals and registrations is key to not further flooding the market with stock. These are the first signs of improvement for many years for the region.”

Independent property researcher and managing director of Hotspotting, Terry Ryder said anyone who owns a residential property in Gladstone would be happy with the report.

"Home owners and investors have been waiting for signs of the downturn to bottom out and turn upwards again,” Mr Ryder said.

"This news is in favour of that and is reflected in vacancy rates, which went as high as 12 per cent in mid 2016 and have come down steadily to 3 per cent.

"The figures show a general improvement in the market and the likelihood rents can start nudging up again and prospect of prises rising for first time in five years.

"People buying in recently have done well. Getting in now and during the last couple of years has been much lower than four to five years ago.”

Originally published as Report reveals encouraging signs for owners and investors