On your coast guard

Can’t decide whether to buy a swish penthouse apartment in Noosa or a beachside shack in Byron Bay?

Agents report prices are down by about 25 per cent in Noosa, whereas Byron Bay appears to have sailed through the economic storm.

Noosa agent Tom Offermann, who has worked on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast for the past 25 years, says it is “absolutely” the best time to buy there.

“The prices are at a level now not seen for years,” he says. “The best time to buy is when you are not in competition with other buyers. In most cases, property prices have dropped 10 to 15 per cent. In some areas, some property prices have fallen 20 to 25 per cent.

“This is across the whole region. There’s a lack of confidence after the global financial crisis, which was exacerbated on the coast because of the high proportion of discretionary properties.”

Offermann, who runs Tom Offermann Real Estate, says a new four-bedroom waterfront house in Noosa Waters was originally priced at $3.8 million. It is now on the market for $3.3 million.

“There’s a three-bedroom penthouse apartment on two levels, with a rooftop sauna and two spas in Noosa Pacific, one of Noosa’s few six-storey holiday apartment blocks. The penthouse owner was originally seeking over $4 million; he has reduced the it to $3.15 million.

“We are starting to get some traction with sales again as buyers come in and take advantage of the low prices that won’t last forever.”

Also softening Noosa prices is a looming receivers’ sale of 22 houses built on Noosa’s north shore that will be released over the next two months.

“They originally sold for up to $1.5 million each but we anticipate the market will want to pay a lot less.’’

Over the border in Byron Bay on the NSW north coast, there has been little discounting. Prices have held up pretty well, says Ed Silk of Ed Silk Real Estate.

“The volume of sales are not what they used to be. It’s a good time to buy because the volumes have been slower than normal. There’s some good stock out there at the moment – it has not been heavily discounted as yet. We seem to still be quite strong here,” he says.

“You hear about Noosa ... they are discounting quite heavily up there. Our market is a lot smaller. People forget how small our market is and it’s tightly held.”

A director of Byron Bay Property Sales, Graham Dunn, says: “If you think it’s going to be dear now, come back next year – it will be dearer. The [local] green council has both feet on the hand brake.”

There are only 50 vacant lots of land available to be developed in the township, Dunn says. “That’s it. There’s no more land on the horizon. There’s probably five houses in Wategos on the market; there’s normally four sales per year. There have been three sales in the past two-and-a-half years.’’

But Dunn concedes there have been a few price drops. “Prices have gone down in some cases where people have been forced to meet the market,” he says.

BRW

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