Sunshine Coast Daily, Maroochydore

July 05, 2024

Sophie Foster

A new report has revealed the next 50 suburbs set to boom.

The much anticipated Hotspotting Price Predictor Index (PPI) Winter Edition has been released, showing which suburbs are ripe for price growth due to steady increases in sales volumes over more than four consecutive quarters.

Hotspotting director Terry Ryder (inset) said that despite record prices being set across many states already, there was much more to come, with New South Wales’ suburbs making up half the top 50 list (26), compared with just five in Queensland. The Sunshine State was beaten on the price predictor list by Victoria which had 10 suburbs, with even South Australia pipping Queensland with six.

The only non-state player in the top 50 was the Australian Capital Territory with three superchargers. Mr Ryder said “history shows that there is a correlation between sales volumes and price movements: the number of sales changes first and then prices react – with a time lag”.

 “This is true whether markets are rising or falling and means that investors can buy ahead of price growth, by finding locations where sales volumes are rising but prices have not yet moved.”

Queensland, which has seen some of the strongest pandemic-led growth in prices across the country, saw just five suburbs make the top 50 this time – two of which are in the Greater Brisbane region and among the cheapest places to buy property in the city region. Bahrs Scrub in Logan in the Greater Brisbane region’s south has seen sales ramping up steadily from 21 a quarter, to 26, 30, 37 and 36 most recently. Macleay Island in the Redlands, also in the region’s south, is seeing sales spike higher from 27, to 42, 53, 42 and 58. The rest of Queensland’s top 50 superchargers were outside the Greater Brisbane region, led by Highfields in Toowoomba, which had 60 sales in the last quarter compared with 38 more than a year ago.

The other two to make the list were Kirkwood in Gladstone and Palmview on the Sunshine Coast. The median house price in Palmview is now $800,000, up 29.8 per cent in three years and 45.5 per cent in five years.

The suburb has also recorded a number of sales over $2 million. But the real surge in prices is set to come out of New South Wales according to Hotspotting GM Tim Graham – a resurgence that started last year and continues solidly in 2024.

Mr Graham said Adelaide and Regional South Australia also continued to be two of the nation’s most promising markets.

The PropTrack Property Market Outlook Report, released last week, revealed that Brisbane property prices are rising faster than expected, prompting experts to revise 2024 forecasts.

The report, released twice a year, lifted Brisbane’s 2024 annual growth expectations by one percentage point off strong demand and “exceptionally tight” housing supply so far this year.

PropTrack economic research director Cameron Kusher said “we’re now seeing that prices are likely to rise by the end of this year by 4 to 7 per cent”.

The earlier prediction was for a 3 to 6 per cent annual rise. Mr Kusher said there was no doubt the pace of price growth in Brisbane was slowing, given it logged a 12.2 per cent increase between July 2023 and May 2024.

“One of the big drivers of really strong price growth over the last couple of years has been that there hasn’t been much stock coming to the market and very little stock sitting on the market. We do expect that the number of properties coming to the market will lift and that will take some of that fear of missing out (FOMO) out of it and lead to slower price growth.”

“Brisbane prices are higher than Melbourne prices and we’ve had these sustained gains in property prices for several years now,” he said.

“Prices will continue to rise. They’re just going to be slower paced.” Mr Kusher said the growth seen over the past five years was not sustainable: “It’s reasonable to expect we’re going to see slower price growth over the coming years.”

Mr Kusher said housing affordability was a big challenge now for Brisbane and South East Queensland with borrowing capacity quite stretched. He said “interest rates are the highest they’ve been in 12 years.

They are low on a historic basis, but when you consider the amount of debt that households have and how expensive property prices are, a 4.35 per cent cash rate today is probably like a 10 to 12 per cent cash rate at the start of the 90s.