Deepak Gupta lives in Sydney, but he bought a home in Browns Plains as an investment property 6 years ago.
That was back in 2015 when he and his wife picked up 9 Whitehall Street for $375,000.
Fast forward to now and the property has just hit a staggering record sale for the suburb of $552,000.
“I was very excited, we both were, we’d been trying to sell it for the last few years and couldn’t get it anywhere near that price,” he said.
“We were really happy with the outcome because we really needed that money so we can build our own house here in Sydney.”
Only 12 months ago, the family’s agent Tammie Lor from Ray White Marsden said it would have fetched high 300s.
“Twelve months ago, you’d be looking at sale prices of $390,000,” she said.
The home had three offers before being listed, which were in the early $500s, but Ms Lor sensed it would go for more when it eventually hit the market.
“I just knew that if we went to market, we’d get significantly higher than the offers we were getting pre-market,” she said.
She said that kind of sale is on par with expected sale numbers in more upper class areas of Logan, such as Regents Park.
“Browns Plains has gone up 21.2%, and you compare it to its neighbour, Regents Park – more of an an upper-class suburb compared to Browns Plains – and that’s only had a price growth of 8.8% which is really significant when you compare the two.”
Browns Plains Real Estate agent Neil Giles has seen similar increases frequently in the last year, which are exceeding reserves and true property values, in some cases.
“The last time I saw this happen was when I first started in the area in 2003, and house prices moved 100 grand in 6 months, and when home buyer’s grants were brought in during the GFC in 2008,” he said.
If he walks out and gives a tour of his office’s window displays featuring the properties he has on offer, he can only point to those which are under contract, but even then, they are limited.
What he really wants right now more than ever are new listings. However, with the market so strong, that is not happening, and agents all over are feeling the pinch.
“I’ve got nothing listed – I’ve got things that are under contract – but I’ve got no new stock at the moment and I’m desperately looking for some,” Mr Giles said.
Properties are being snapped up as soon as they hit the market or, increasingly, through private sales, making it harder for agents to find stock and for the public to have a fair shot at finding places.
In his 18 years of doing real estate in Browns Plains, Mr Giles has noticed a shift where the Logan property market is uncharacteristically starting to close the gap with the Brisbane property market.
It used to be that prices for properties in Parkinson were marked up more than a comparable housing option over the council boundary in Browns Plains – simply because it is in Logan. As a result, sellers in Logan got a lesser slice of the pie.
But now, that is changing as the market is inundated and demand for properties increases all over southeast Queensland, jacking up prices in the process.
“The huge gap between the suburbs in terms of market prices are now closing up, and we haven’t really seen that in Logan,” Mr Giles said.
