Uptick in sales volume offers glimmer of light to Gladstone land market

THE gloom around the around Gladstone land market could be showing signs of lifting, with an uptick in sales volume and limited new supply giving opportunity for existing stock to be absorbed offering positive signs, according to Ray White’s latest Between the Lines* report.

Ray White’s Head of Research Vanessa Rader said there has been much-needed downward momentum regarding the advancement of new development of vacant land over the last five years.

“This slow addition of stock has been welcomed by the local market with the need to absorb these existing high stock levels,” Ms Rader said.

“The Gladstone LGA has a further 1,520ha of broadacre land suitable for land subdivision which could yield over 8,000 new lots.

“Data collected by Ray White Commercial shows there are currently over 400 lots registered and available for sale, with a further 300 completed, but yet to be registered.

“This high volume of available stock coupled with the slow sales rate has taken a toll on the median values achieved for both vacant land, and house and land packages in the region.”

Ray White Commercial Gladstone Director Andrew Allen said vacant land sales and limited lot approvals and lot registrations in the past 12 months have offered much-needed positivity to the market.

“It’s encouraging to see lot registrations and lot approvals are down on five and 10-year averages, giving the market time to continue to recover,” Mr Allen said.

“Positivity really lies in the vacant land sales, where we saw a total of 148 over the past 12 months, showing an increase of 55.79 per cent.

“The slowdown in approvals and registrations is key to not further flood the market with stock, also encouraging is the median lot size has again rebounded to 861sq m.

“This reversion back to larger lots is more in line with local demand which is in the 800-1,000sq m size range.

“With the bulk of lots currently on the market in the sub 600sq m size range, we’re seeing more buyers investigating the idea of purchasing two lots side by side, to amalgamate into a larger land parcel.

“This changing trend could attribute to the increase in vacant land sales in the 2017/2018 period. These are the first signs of improvement for many years for the region.”

*Ray White Between the Lines Commercial Research – Gladstone LGA Vacant Land Report – January 2019.