Real estate agents are always getting asked what we think the market is doing and these days more commonly do we think it will crash.
 
There are many markets in SEQ as there are in Australia and they are all behaving differently. There are a lot of reasons for this but I think the principal ones are: –

• interstate immigration
• local unemployment figures
• interest rates

 
We are experiencing an influx of people and we still don't seem to have enough people to fill the jobs, Anybody who has employed a tradesman or had a building extension done recently knows just how much costs and incomes have risen over the past couple of years.
 
Interest rates are an interesting exercise because the cash rate at the moment is 3.1%. It has to go to 4% before it equates to an average variable lending rate just over 7% which is still within the stress tested mortgage rates from 2019 when most people fixed so yes there is a lot of pressure on some people but we expect the increase in Gold Coast wages and the increase in property values since 2019 to protect most people from distressed sale situations.
 
If anything buyer enquiry, at least in our part of the Gold Coast, is very strong and there are a relatively reduced number of listings. Situations like this can easily increase prices rather than decrease them.
 
It is our opinion that prices in some segments have fallen in the order of 3.5% and in other segments we are achieving the same or higher prices than we were 12 months ago. Certainly looking at price segments the change over 12 months  has been more stock sold in upper ranges.
 
On the Sunshine Coast, the house market peaked with a median sales price of $1million in March quarter last year. Since then, median values have fallen by $90,000 or 9%. The sale distribution by price range shows that the Sunshine Coast housing market is softest at the top-end and especially for homes listed for sale over $1.5 million.
 

The Brisbane detached house market peaked during the June quarter last year with a median sales price of $795,000. Since then, median values have fallen by $50,000 or by about 6%. Like the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane’s softest market is also the top-end, and this too has driven much of recent change in median house values. Some price falls were to be expected given that median house prices across the   Brisbane region were just $550,000 at the start of the Covid pandemic. Median house values rose by $245,000 or 44% between early 2020 and mid 2022.

 Here is the latest Matusik Gold Coast research current at January 2023.
 
The Gold Coast also peaked with a median house value around $1 million. Since June last year the median sales price has fallen by just $35,000 or by around 4%.
 
In contrast to the Sunshine Coast in Brisbane, the top end of the Gold Coast Housing market remain strong. Housing sales of over 1.5 million are still gaining market share. The middle detached housing market in this case being priced between $750,000 and $1,000,000 is also gaining market share.
 
Looking forward while sales volumes are falling across the Gold Coast, listings are also declining in a similar fashion. Risen. There is now just eight months of resale housing supply on the market.
 
With the same caveat as outlined for Brisbane, Gold Coast Housing market values are likely to plateau soon and should start to rise during the second half of 2023.
 
The median house price on the Gold Coast was just $660,000 during the March quarter of 2020 median house values have lifted just under 50% since the beginning of 2020
 

 
A fuller picture
Any housing market commentary needs to embrace not only median values but the distribution of sales by price range plus the number of overall sales and the number of homes listed for sale.
 
This detail would help give the audience a fuller picture of what is going on.