In what some home owners might view as a sign of market stability, the overall local market recorded a slight uplift in median price over the 1st Quarter of 2015. However further analysis reveals that this uplift was primarily due to unusually low sales volumes skewed by an unusually high number of sales at the top end, including two $1m plus transactions.
Q1 2015 was characterised by the lowest levels of sales volumes seen since Q2 year 2000. A time around the introduction of the GST and a time when Gladstone was a much smaller place.
A Christmas credit hangover, Easter and a stream of public holidays are straight forward and typical factors to blame, but these events occur each year.
The real cause – weak local economic conditions, lack of confidence, a general perception of sales prices reducing further, tightening lending conditions, and buyer opportunism.
All of this has occurred despite the lowest interest rates in living memory.
Some suburbs including Barney Point and Toolooa recorded zero completed transactions.
The announcement that Shell is to takeover BG Group’s assets including its mammoth Gladstone LNG Facility was received as a positive locally and this may be a catalyst stimulate employment and community confidence in the months ahead.