What does the Sunshine Coast’s housing future look like?

Last week, Housing Industry Association (HIA) chief economist Tim Reardon predicted that the surging demand for property on the Sunshine Coast would not fall to a “sustainable” level until 2025.

This means the region’s current land scarcity and dwelling shortage – driven by factors such as COVID-fuelled record home-building and interstate migration, government stimulus grants and low interest rates – could continue to push prices up and cause more “housing stress”.

Naturally, there’s been a lot of talk around planning and development; in particular, how to provide affordable housing to accommodate the Coast’s rapidly growing population.

One solution being put forward is infill development, which involves increasing living density on existing urban land (for example, duplexes, townhouses and secondary dwellings such as granny flats).

This type of housing will no doubt be a focus of the Sunshine Coast Council’s new planning scheme, due to be completed by 2024 – especially given that there’s not enough building land in the area to meet the projected population growth.

So, what might future housing development look like on the Sunshine Coast and what does it mean for prospective investors?

According to local town planners, more people are embracing the townhouse and terrace lifestyle – what they call housing’s “missing middle” (between low-density single homes and high-density apartments).

Over the 35 years that Dwyer has been in business, we’ve seen the Coast slowly emerge into the property hotspot it is today. We also foresaw many of the development challenges – and opportunities – brought about by this growth.

So, last year we decided to add medium-density terraces to our product offering – and they’ve proved incredibly popular with both renters and owner-occupiers. These modern freehold dwellings are built in a line of seven but, unlike duplexes, they don’t share any common walls and they also don’t have body corporate fees.

Our first batch of 14 upmarket terrace homes sold out in 2020. This year, Dwyer is bringing another 14 to the market – some of which have already been snapped up by savvy investors who stand to benefit from the high-yield rental returns and strong capital growth potential of these properties.

Priced from $595,000, I believe they’re one of the best-value investment products in South-East Queensland, with a guaranteed gross rental income of $530 a week and an annual equity gain of around $36,000.

You can preview our popular Calore parkfront terraces here. If you like what you see, contact me to arrange a 20-minute Zoom call and I can talk you through the financials and your property investment options.

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Maybe the first iteration of terraces alongside the Calore terraces. Or that shot of Harmony with the Dwyer terraces on the corner.

One option...