
September 17, 2020
There’s been a lot of speculative doom and gloom stories written about Australia’s residential property markets over the last few months. One region that’s shown to be exceptionally resilient is Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. After initial spikes in rental vacancy rates March/April at the peak of the Covid19 lockdowns, this market has shown a considerable tightening ever since.
Vacancy Rates August 2019 and August 2020 according to SQM Research
Brisbane down from 2.5% to 2.1%
Sunshine Coast down from 1.6% to 0.6%
According to Residential property researcher Michael Matusik, vacancy rates under 2% suggests a significant shortfall of suitable rental accommodation. Typically, when the vacancy rate is under 2%, weekly rents start to rise.
According to Hotspotting’s Winter 2020 Price Predictor Report, the Sunshine Coast has 19 suburbs at different price points that have consistent or rising sales volumes. From the report “We continue to rate The Sunshine coast, one of the strongest economic and real estate stories in the nation, and it has produced another solid result in this Winter Survey.”
What’s the reason?
We now see an evident COVID/ZOOM/MEET/TEAM related change to how we want to live our lives. Lifestyle has become a priority over proximity to work/restaurants, bars.
Having lived the last 25 years in buzzing inner Sydney and commuting to Brisbane the previous three years, we made a move to the Sunshine Coast early March with absolutely no regrets. We work full time and still travel regularly to Brisbane (1 hour) to inspect and purchase property as well as meeting customers. We also spend a lot of time doing the same on the Sunshine Coast. In between, we sneak in bush/beach swims and walks morning, lunch and night. Did I mention the seasonal tropical produce? We buy our seafood, fresh and straight off the trawler.

Montville Walking trails