House prices up on the Gold Coast as it ‘clearly outpaces’ Brisbane

The year-on-year price rise of 7.4 per cent on the Gold Coast was more than double Brisbane’s, which was at 3.1 per cent, Domain Group data has shown.

The Gold Coast’s median house price rose to $613,500 in the previous 12 months. 

Domain’s chief economist Andrew Wilson said rising growth on the southern stretch of coast indicated the city’s housing market was no longer tied to the state’s capital.

“These things usually track each other up and down marginally but it has broken apart … In the last 10 to 15 years we haven’t seen a disengagement like this,” he said. “We’ve got a clear breaking away, if you look at the cycles this is not a short-term blip.”

Strong government investment in infrastructure ahead of the Commonwealth Games and international and interstate attention were adding to the Gold Coast’s appeal. Dr Wilson predicted that the Gold Coast would continue its upward trajectory, separate from what goes in Brisbane, but added the cities’ economies’ would remain linked in other ways.

“What drives the Gold Coast is slightly different to the Brisbane market, but I think the Gold Coast is converging geographically with Brisbane, it may end up being a higher price point area of Brisbane,” he said. “It’s a 40-minute drive and all you have to do is look at the traffic at peak times … it’s a car park. It’s an inevitability.”

PRD Nationwide’s Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo didn’t share Dr Wilson’s view the Gold Coast was about to permanently decouple its property market from Brisbane’s. She said the exceptional growth was largely down to the Commonwealth Games, and it would be Brisbane’s time to shine in the years to come.

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 “It’s like the cities are taking turns,” she said. “They’re focusing on the Gold Coast with all the build-up for the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

“In Brisbane, we’ve got the big Queens Wharf project that’s not going to finish until another two or three years so by that time the attention will shift to us.”

While real estate professionals are optimistic by nature, two prominent Gold Coast agents didn’t share Dr Wilson’s view of a dramatic uncoupling either.

REIQ Gold Coast chairman John Newlands said interest in the coast would cool after the Games. “I personally feel post Commonwealth Games, it may slow down a bit,” he said. “But what is encouraging the growth on the Gold Coast will continue and there’s suggestions the population will double by 2050. It’s not going to be booming forever, though.”

Ray White Surfers Paradise chief executive Andrew Bell said the gradual rise in prices on the Gold Coast indicated a sustainable period of growth in the future.

“In many components of the Gold Coast markets we’ve just got back to 2007 levels, we’re not in a risk area.”

Mr Bell said the current decline in momentum in the Brisbane market was due to an earlier recovery from the global financial crisis. “The upwards swing in the Brisbane market after the GFC started before the Gold Coast so it may slow or pause before us,” he said.