Gympie, Bundaberg, Fraser Coast land sales hit 10-year high

Vacant land has become a hot commodity across the Wide Bay, with buyers snapping up properties before they have even made it off the plan.

Build it and they will come is the proverb, but across the Wide Bay they are coming long before anything is even started.

Vacant land sales across the Gympie, Fraser Coast and Bundaberg regions have soared in the past 12 months to a 10-year high, with one agent saying sales were being completed long before the land was even ready.

State Government data revealed in the year between April 2020 and March 2021, 304 blocks of vacant land were sold across Gympie.

This was more than double the 130 sales recorded in the year before.

It was a similar story further north.

One Agency’s Pete Angle said buyers had been snapping properties up off the plan, something he could not remember happening before.

On the Fraser Coast, 849 vacant blocks were sold in the year ending March 2021, almost double the 431 sales recorded the year before.

Across Bundaberg 594 vacant blocks were sold in that same period.

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This was more than double the 240 blocks sold in the year before.

One Agency owner Pete Angle, based in Gympie, said properties were being snapped off the market before titles had even been issued.

State Government data reveals Bundaberg’s land sales have soared in the past year.

He “can’t remember” the last time that happened.

“We’re doing everything off the plan,” Mr Angle said.

“It’s become the norm.

“The secret’s out with Gympie,” Mr Angle said.

“We’ve still got very good value when compared to the Sunshine Coast.”

Vacant land sales in Gympie have hit a 10-year high.

Southside was proving the property hot spot at the moment, but land at Curra and Glenwood had become a hot commodity.

“It will go quickly.”

Synergy Property Specialists Bundaberg principal Tim McCollum said there was no single ignition point for the surge but “a combination of a whole range of factors”.

Mr McCollum said young adults who left home and chose to rent between 2010-2020 were now looking to enter the property market as rental prices crept beyond affordability.

Synergy Property Specialists Bundaberg principal Tim McCollum said a combination of forces including a surge of prospective first time homeowners, the pandemic and Federal Government stimulus had driven the surge in the market.

This was compounded by declining interest rates, the aftermath of the initial stages of the Covid pandemic, and Federal Government support in response to the pandemic.

‘There’s 10 years of first homeowners buying houses,” Mr McCollum said.

The capital city population exodus as people fled for regional areas largely unaffected by continued lockdowns was another piece of the hot property pie.

“Demand from all over the country is pushing prices up,” he said.