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THE Gold Coast needs more than 100 new houses a week to cope with its huge population growth.

The city’s population increased by 17,374 people in 2006.

Between now and 2011, when the city is expected to hit 643,000, about 55,000 people — roughly equivalent to the population of Mackay — will have been be added to the Coast.

To deal with the massive population boom, the Gold Coast needs 133 new homes a week, according to a new report by real estate agency chain PRDnationwide’s corporate office.

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The Gold Coast is rapidly running out of land, especially in good high growth areas of Coomera and the growth corridor. Peter Gleeson, chief reporter G.C.Bulletin says “Sales of house and land packages and vacant land have dropped to a 5 year low, not because of the shortage of buyers, but because there isn’t enough stock.

Vacant land sales on the Gold Coast plummeted by 24% in the June quarter, while there were only 165 house-and-land packages sold, the lowest since 2002.” According to the quartley Prodap report on the city’s residential land and house market released yesterday the Gold Coast is struggling to keep up with house and land demand.

“The fall in sales volume reflects seriously low developer stock levels, rather than any decline in demand” said the report. We are told constantly by developers that this situation is caused by delays in obtaining council approvals.”

Source: GC BULLETIN

Vacant land grab feared as stocks begin to dry up. IT’S crunch time for developers.

Vacant land sales are at their highest level since 2003, the end of the last boom, but low stock levels could lead to a major squeeze on the property market as it saddles up for a new wave of growth in 2008.
“The Gold Coast will need to build a lot more houses over the next few years to meet the increasing demand.”Mr Morris said that while 15,000 southerners continued to flood the Gold Coast each year, many of them were not buying into the property market.They were choosing to rent in the face of rising interest rates and purchase costs, creating a false sense of market demand.

Mr Morris said the sheer volume of migration put underlying demand at 6250 homes a year, well above actual house and land sales of just 3830 for 2006.

He said some of the country’s biggest players already had their hands on significant tracts of land and he had identified Coomera, east of the M1, as the developers’ cauldron over the next 10 years.

Source: GC Weekend Bulletin