‘Priced out of their own cities’: Qld property to be hot for years

Queensland remains a top destination for house hunters despite skyrocketing rents and prices, with a survey finding 15 per cent of Aussies are considering moving to the state in three to five years.

A YouGov survey has found almost half of respondents who were still motivated to move to Queensland said it had better weather conditions (48 per cent) and overall quality of life (47 per cent), with the Gold Coast top of the list as a destination for 40 per cent of them.

PropTrack senior data analyst Karen Dellow said search data on realestate.com.au had picked up an annual rise in rental enquiries from interstate, despite buy searches dropping off.

“Queensland remains a popular destination amongst interstate searchers, in particular those looking to rent,” she said. “Searches for rental properties in the Sunshine State are up 2 per cent year-on-year. At the same time, interstate property seekers looking to buy have backed off slightly and searches are down 9 per cent.”

“A higher proportion of property seekers from Victoria are looking to buy in Queensland rather than rent. The reverse is true for New South Wales, where 55 per cent of all searches into Queensland are for rental properties. The number of New South Wales searches for those looking to buy is slightly lower, comprising 51 per cent of searches.”

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Future Olympic city Brisbane is third most popular for the biggest chunk of overseas househunters who are coming out of New Zealand.

This comes as PropTrack also found international searches for Australian property surging to record levels, up 34 per cent on pre-pandemic levels (2019) in the past three months, as migration hits its highest level in three years.

“New Zealand property seekers remain the number one fan of Aussie homes, with rent searches up 37.5 per cent on this time last year and searches to buy up 8.8 per cent,” Ms Dellow said, with the Gold Coast their most popular target, followed by Melbourne and Greater Brisbane.

Latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data has Queensland showing the highest annual population growth rate in the country – up 2.2 per cent to 5.35m people in September.

KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said population growth had “definitely returned to that pre Covid trend with international migration opening up, but also it’s still pretty attractive for interstate migration and that comes down to housing affordability”.

“Queensland is still relatively more affordable than Sydney and Melbourne,” he said, backed by a “strong lifestyle attraction” and a very strong labour market.

“Unemployment rates across the state are at a very low level, job vacancies are very high, so there are a lot of people being pulled into Queensland from other parts of the country.”

Villawood Properties Queensland GM Michael Williams said demand remains strong from out of state buyers, including those priced out of markets interstate or “interstate regional relocators wanting to escape the rat race”.

“We are still experiencing strong enquiry from interstate buyers, particularly those who have been priced out of the market in their own cities.”

Mr Williams said affordability was driving much of the out of state queries, “however, lifestyle is proving to be a key driver for many of our interstate purchasers looking for a tree change”.

“We have seen unprecedented demand for land over the past two and a half years, and land supply is as tight as we have ever seen it in South East Queensland. It is getting increasingly more challenging for people to find land in growth areas to build on, particularly lots large enough to accommodate a large family home.”

“Not only is land supply tightening but land values have skyrocketed and it’s priced many people out of the market.”

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Little Hinges has found 30 per cent of buyer inspections for Sunshine Coast properties were coming from outside Queensland.

Little Hinges CMO, Mike York, said his latest Sight Unseen Report, out Thursday, found almost one in four inspections were coming outside the state the property is located in.

On the Gold Coast, 37 per cent of buyer inspections were from outside the state, with that figure at 30 per cent for the Sunshine Coast, he said.

“With March being the first month we’ve seen interest rates stay on hold after nine consecutive rate rises, we may see inspection trends bounce back in April, or this may be the new normal for the foreseeable future.”

Article source: Queensland Property Investor