Coastal towns next year’s property hotspots
COASTAL towns from Tully in Queensland to Upper Burnie in Tasmania are tipped to be among next year’s property hotspots, as house prices in capital cities experience modest falls and upmarket property languishes under the strain of the financial crisis.
In its final property pulse report of the year, RP Data says it expects first-home buyers and investors to look at regional towns such as Tully, in northern Queensland, home of the Golden Gumboot and occasional bizarre UFO sightings (with a median house price of $265,000) and the banana-growing NSW town of Woolgoolga ($330,000).
The firm likes Victoria’s bustling holiday centre of Ocean Grove ($390,000), the value of Tasmania’s Upper Burnie ($180,000), and the prospects for Mount Barker in fast-growing regional South Australia ($343,000) and Wonthella on the outskirts of Geraldton in Western Australia ($339,500).
In the convict era, two Irish and 56 French-Canadian rebels were transported to Australia after the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-38 to break rocks for the Parramatta Road, west of Sydney. RP Data thinks Canada Bay in the city’s inner west, named in honour of the Canadian rebels, is still attractive at $777,500.
Basing its assessment on “strategic affordability”, the firm likes the one-time convict station of Toongabbie, in Sydney’s west, at $386,000, and thinks Crows Nest in the city’s north will be hot for some at $930,000.
In Melbourne, good old Collingwood, one-time haunt of the working-class entrepreneur John Wren, is hot at $566,250 and Kensington is still rated as a goer at $540,000. In Brisbane, RP Data likes a cluster of suburbs north and south of Fortitude Valley, including Zillmere ($377,000) and Coopers Plains ($405,000). The coastal village of Redcliffe, on Moreton Bay, the first European settlement in Queensland and site of much conflict with Aboriginal people who called the bay Quandamooka, is hot at $355,000.
Analyst Tim Lawless said the residential property market had proved to be resilient during the economic turmoil of this year, but was likely to be relatively flat for most of next year, with factors such as rising unemployment continuing to have a dampening effect on prices, despite falling interest rates.
Across the nation, median dwelling values declined by 1.24per cent in the 12 months to October, with house values falling by 1.55 per cent and unit values by just 0.29 per cent. By comparison, share market values fell by about 40 per cent over the same period.
Looking at the upper end of the property market, analyst Cameron Kusher said poor company profits, lower-than-expected bonus payments and severe pain in the equities and financial markets meant top-end property was likely to languish in the new year.
“As a result of these changes in the top end, holiday homes and tourism-driven investments will be affected, and in many cases there will be a lot more forced sales,” Mr Kusher said.
Coastal towns next year’s property hotspots | The Australian