Gold Coast median unit price hits $767,000, now one of Australia's most expensive apartment markets

The median apartment price along the southern Queensland coastline reached $767,000 in the first quarter of this year, up a staggering 15 per cent from the previous year.

The Gold Coast has now cemented itself as one the most expensive apartment markets in the country, trailing only Sydney ($806,137) but well ahead of the other capitals.

From Coomera in the north to Coolangatta in the south, the Gold Coast benefitted from enormous interstate migration during the pandemic.

It was a turning point for the region, said Tolemy Stevens, a sales agent specialising in absolute beachfront luxury apartments.

“Almost overnight we could see that people had realised how desirable this lifestyle is and how the Gold Coast has grown up over the last 10 years.”

“You mix that with the ridiculously cheap real estate and value for money that we had compared to our southern states – it was almost the perfect storm.”

According to Domain Group data, apartments traded at a median price of $421,250 in March 2020. Even though prices have soared hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Gold Coast population – and apartment market – is still booming.

“They keep coming in droves,” Stevens said. “There are more people wanting to move here than there are people moving out.” 

“If there were another 10, 20, 30 towers completed today, they would all be sold. There is a severe undersupply of properties for sale. Developers are two to three years from being able to get anything off the ground and a lot of developments aren’t going ahead.”

In their most recent State of the Market report, Charter Keck Cramer found the Gold Coast apartment market had robust sales and continued price growth compared to other Australian cities.

“That being said, it is not without some key risks and challenges primarily in the building and construction space,” the report read. “Conditions remain challenging but are not as acute as in Melbourne or Brisbane. Many recently launched projects are achieving strong sales and pricing results, especially those associated with well regarded builders.”

The report noted that rising building and material costs and interest rate hikes had seen some mainstream projects become financially unviable.

Meanwhile, active developments along the waterfront were mainly “targeting premium price points and therefore new dwellings at the more affordable end of the scale are limited,” the report added.

Indeed, dozens of cranes dot the coastline. For locals, it feels like apartments are springing up left, right and centre. But agents all along the coast say there isn’t nearly enough supply to meet demand – in any price bracket.

“It’s stock levels that are driving prices,” said Orren Topolansky of Ray White Robina. He keeps a personal graph of stock levels for the entire Gold Coast, including houses and apartments.

“In 2017, there were on average 10,000 properties on the market at any given time. Now we’re hovering just above 4000.”

In the Robina area, there were few new apartment developments, he said, but older stock was trading strongly. Topolansky said it was a mix of first-home buyers and retired downsizers competing for apartments, adding, “returns just aren’t there for investors”.

In Palm Beach,  Leanne Frohmuller of LJ Hooker Southern Gold Coast echoed a similar sentiment. “There are still a lot more buyers than there are properties,” she said.

The entry-level market was driven by “young couples trying to get into the market and wanting a beach lifestyle rather than getting something bigger but farther out”.

Frohmuller said the suburb’s apartments ranged from “the old motel-style accommodation right up to $10 million to $12 million beachfront properties”.

Recently, an original two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in a circa 1970s brick building just a street from the beach sold under the hammer for $960,000.

“The unit was packed with people,” Frohmuller said, adding auctions were becoming more commonplace in the unit market.

Further north, Stevens last week sold an entire-floor apartment in a boutique beachfront block of only seven for $6.5 million, representing $2066 per square metre.

“We’re still seeing an upswing in the price per square metre. We’re not seeing it flatten out, it’s still aggressively on the rise.”

There were 12 registered cash bidders for 3/19 Broadbeach Boulevard, Broadbeach.

“I cannot recall when I had a finance clause on a high end beachfront sale,” Stevens said. “I haven’t had one in the last six to 12 months. It’s all cash.”