For those looking to buy a house on the Gold Coast, 16 days may be all the time you have to close a deal.
New data from CoreLogic has revealed houses on the Gold Coast are among the fastest-selling in the country’s 25 largest regions.
Houses on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts and Toowoomba are typically on the market for just over two weeks.
It comes as “no surprise” to the managing director of Harcourts Coastal, Dane Atherton, who says “historically, it would be the lowest in Gold Coast history”.
But Mr Atherton thinks the market is about to level out.
Coast homes in hot demand
CoreLogic’s Head of Research Eliza Owen said houses on the Gold Coast and in Toowoomba were on the market for a median time of just 16 days.
For units, it was about 21 days.
On the Sunshine Coast, houses sell in about 15 days — the quickest selling of the regions.
Ms Owen said the coasts’ booming popularity meant those areas were now leading the pack.
“A year ago, the time on the market for houses was 31 days, so it’s virtually halved,” she said.
The quarterly Regional Market Update revealed house values on the Gold Coast jumped about 36 per cent in the past 12 months, and unit prices about 27 per cent.
“That takes the median house value across the Gold Coast to just over a million dollars,” Ms Owen said.
Record by ‘a country mile’
Mr Atherton said some houses were selling in just 14 days at his Gold Coast agency.
He said houses sold between 60 to 90 days in a normal market.
“It shows you exactly the kind of hot market we are in when we’re as low as 14 to 21 days,” he said.
“By a country mile, it’s the lowest I’ve ever seen in my career.”
Mr Atherton put the increase down to “lifestyle decisions” to move to the Gold Coast.
“We’ve had early uncertainty followed by a dramatic, unexpected increase in demand, which fuels huge price growth,” he said.
“We’ve had FOMO [fear of missing out], we had buyer urgency, we had huge southern migration.
“Markets like Surfers Paradise have benefited from international lockdowns in travel … you’ve got these discretionary holiday markets that have become popular because buyers are effectively purchasing a second place of residence … as a holiday home.”
‘Unheard of’ auction records
Those looking to buy a house under the hammer are having a tougher time too, with auction clearance rates almost doubling in a year.
Mr Atherton said more properties were going to auction and selling on the day, rather than in the days that followed.
“Sellers want to capitalise on increased buyer demand and they don’t want to undersell,” he said.
Mr Atherton said, traditionally, auction clearance rates pre-COVID were sitting around 50 per cent in south-east Queensland.
“To have a 90 per cent or 95 per cent clearance rate on the Gold Coast or even in south-east Queensland is unheard of,” he said.
But Mr Atherton said there was a light at the end of the tunnel for buyers, and he believed the market was about to stabilise.
Ms Owen said it would be “very unlikely we’ll see another 36 per cent growth rate in 2022”.
“A rise in interest rates will see a broad-based downturn in housing market activity, and that could see people looking to buy regionally hold off as well,” she said.