Housing bargains still available
Dozens of Queensland suburbs where buyers have the upper hand and cannot only purchase within their budget but also avoid fierce competition have been revealed.
The state’s 23 most oversupplied pockets, typically greenfield, include 14 in Greater Brisbane and two on the Gold Coast, analytics firm SuburbData shows.
Each location has more than three per cent of its total stock on the market – or more than 3000 dwellings – including Greenbank, in Logan, and Banksia Beach, near Bribie Island.
Median house prices in Greater Brisbane’s top five most oversupplied suburbs were between $749,700 (Ripley) and $1.29m (Chambers Flat).
Nikenbah in Hervey Bay had the highest proportion of homes on the market (8.3 per cent), followed by Walloon (7.1 per cent), Ripley (6.1 per cent), and South Maclean (5.5 per cent).
Two Gold Coast suburbs – Hope Island and Jacobs Well – were listed along with Parramatta Park and Palm Cove (Cairns), Eumundi (Sunshine Coast), Mackay and Coral Cove (Bundaberg).
A benchmark of a balanced market – where demand and supply are even – is one where one per cent of total housing is for sale. More than two per cent usually shows the supply of housing exceeds the number of people looking to buy, according to Suburbdata analyst Jeremy Sheppard.
Most Queensland suburbs remained severely undersupplied, as listings slowly recover from a post-pandemic free fall amid huge interstate migration and construction slowdown.
Mr Sheppard said while first homebuyers can still find opportunities in oversupplied areas they do risk being trapped for years before home values rise and also of falling into negative equity – where debt is more than the property’s worth.
Flat or falling values could also limit new homeowners’ ability to easily leave the suburb without losing money.
“In the more extreme cases, it could take up to a decade for that excess housing supply to be absorbed and for values to return to normal,” Mr Sheppard said.
Buyers agent Lloyd Edge, of Aus Property Professionals, said oversupply was of more concern for investors.
“If you are buying as an investment in an area where there are so many houses being built at the same time, it means there is no scarcity and that is going to put downward pressure on prices when you go to sell the property because there is so much choice for buyers,” he said.
REA listings show houseand-land from $604,690 available in new Logan and Ipswich estates, including Jimboomba, Logan Reserve, Greenbank, Walloon and Ripley.