Going against the trend in Brisbane, the average price for a city apartment has gone up 23% in the past three months, and is now sitting on $894,000. Sales activity has dropped, as it has everywhere, and of the 51 new apartments up for sale few were at the lower end. Over 20% of the new apartments up for sale were priced at over $1 million. This absence of cheaper units is obviously going to skew the data somewhat, so it will be interesting to see how prices go over the rest of the year.
There are 34 new residential apartment complexes planned for the Brisbane inner city, though most won’t be completed for another three years, so we may see prices continue to rise with little supply and a lot of demand. Unit developers seem to be recognising the rising demand for higher-priced, top quality units amongst the baby boomer set. A lot of couples in the 50s or 60s are selling up their home in the suburb and moving to a low maintenance city apartment, and they’ve got money to spend. Some love it, though I’ve met a few who thought it would be a great idea but having lived in the city for a year or two have come to regret all the busy traffic and noise and are moving back out to suburbia.