With more than 21 years' experience at the Daily, Erle Levey is dedicated to presenting a fair and accurate overview of the Sunshine Coast property market. Having been through the busts and the booms, he has the benefit of hindsight - and an unshakeable belief in the future of the region.

Railway towns in the spotlight

September 15 | Erle Levey

There wouldn’t be an affordability issue in housing if everyone didn’t want to live within 1km of the GPO or the beaches.

That was a simplistic approach put forward by New South Wales Growth Centres Commission chief executive officer Angus Dawson at last month’s Urban Development Institute of Australia’s Queensland conference at Hyatt Coolum. Yet there is a lot of truth in it.

When median house prices on the Sunshine Coast rise along the coastal strip, homebuyers and renters quickly look to the hinterland.

This is reflected in the latest Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) figures which also show a lift in all three local government areas for the past quarter.

Caloundra is up 7.1% to $407,000, Maroochy is up 3.6% to $399,000 and Noosa is up 3.4% to $450,000.

REIQ Sunshine Coast zone chair Lloyd Edwards said there was evidence of people – especially first-home buyers – heading to the more affordable areas to gain a foothold in the property market.

“Railway towns such as Landsborough, Beerwah and the Glasshouse Mountains are becoming popular with people commuting to Brisbane for work, as well as for their relative affordability.”

The same goes for the railway towns around Nambour and north to Gympie. Palmwoods, Woombye, Yandina, Eumundi, Cooroy, Pomona and Cooran have all been more affordable than the coastal strip but are now showing significant rises in prices, generally between 140 and 178% in the past five years.

The dramatic 2001 property rise was caused simply by the fact that the market cycle due in 1995-96 didn’t occur. Instead we had a double increase to overcome the build-up in demand.

At that time rents were low compared to the number of properties available. What has happened is demand on rentals has increased and supply of investment properties has virtually dried up.

There has been a kick in property values. But it is about to kick even higher into the rental market.

It will mean people will have to move further afield from a budget point of view.

Yet as people move into those areas the investors will follow and residential prices will spike upwards.