A third of real estate sales are for houses under $350,000 as cautious buyers play safe

• by Michelle Hele  From: The Courier-Mail  November 20, 2010 12:00AM

QUEENSLAND home buyers are being cautious with their cash with more than a third of sales for houses priced under $350,000.
Quarterly median house price figures released today by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland show that sales of homes priced at less than $350,000 had grown in the September quarter. At the same time the number of buyers spending up big - more than $2 million - was down, with only 22 transactions.
Despite the low number of multi-million-dollar sales, five new suburbs made it on to the $1 million median this quarter - Burbank, Chandler, Pullenvale, St Lucia and New Farm. Brisbane's median house price is now $531,170 - down 1.3 per cent on the previous quarter but 12.5 per cent higher over the year. Despite an abundance of properties on the market, almost a third of the 145 suburbs in the Brisbane statistical division did not record enough sales to provide the REIQ with a reliable median for the September quarter. Ten sales are needed to set the median house price. REIQ managing director Dan Molloy said that while volumes were down and there were some drops in median house prices over the quarter - the median fell in 59 Brisbane suburbs - the year-on-year picture was much better.
Inala topped the list for price growth in Brisbane over the quarter at 45.5 per cent, although the figure was affected by government sales in the area. St Lucia had the highest price growth for the year with a 35.1 per cent increase, although it recorded an 8.5 per cent drop for the quarter. Strong performers in Brisbane were mostly suburbs in the middle ring and upgrader suburbs. Gold Coast median house prices took a dive over the quarter dropping 3 per cent to $480,000 but year on year recorded a reasonable 8.5 per cent increase. The area had some stand-out performers over the quarter, with medians in Biggera Waters jumping 38.4 per cent and Runaway Bay and Benowa up nearly 30 per cent. Broadbeach Waters and Burleigh Heads took a battering with drops of more than 20 per cent, while Surfers Paradise values dropped over the year and quarter. Mr Molloy said that given the current conditions the Gold Coast results were fairly good. "The Gold Coast performance has been held back I guess because of the tourism issues and the Australian dollar," He said that while there was a lower volume of sales throughout the state, prices seemed to be holding up reasonably well.

There is a lot of stock at the moment and some sellers are obviously having to adjust their expectations in terms of prices. I think what we are going to see is in the next couple of quarters we will start to see these sellers becoming a bit more philosophical (about prices)," Mr Molloy said the September quarter figures were affected by interest rate increases and uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the federal election. There also was an absence of first-home buyers and investors.