Herron Todd White’s latest Month in Review Report forecasted a reduction in international and interstate investment in 2018, due to rising house prices and measures targeting overseas ownership.
“At a high and simplistic level, the majority of recent sales activity is heavily in favour of owner-occupiers as investors are being impacted by loan and lending issues for both resident and overseas buyers,” the report states.
“The historical ‘sell our house in Sydney for $X million and buy a waterfront property on the Gold Coast, plus a boat and have $300,000 plus in the bank’ is probably no longer a reality as Gold Coast prices have increased dramatically.”
However, the report said the current rate of interstate migration, rising rents, low vacancy rates and strong tourism numbers should be enough to prop up the local market enough to offset a large decline.
The report also forecast that infrastructure projects including the extension of the light rail, the Jade and Spirit high-rise developments, Queen Street Village in Southport and Coomera Town Centre will have a strong influence in 2018.
“While the pace of growth will be nothing like we have seen over the past two to three years, the Gold Coast will still be considered a relatively strong performer when compared to some other major markets in Australia that seem set to continue a gradual decline over the first half of the year. Our prediction is flat to maybe 2 per cent growth over the first six months before a decline late in 2018 or early 2019.”
