Gold Coast's High-Crime Suburbs Outperform The Property Market

Housing in high-crime areas such as Miami, Burleigh Heads and Southport are outperforming the Gold Coast market, according to research house RiskWise Property Research.

 

Riskwise identified the Top 10 Gold Coast high-crime areas (Source: Queensland Police) to compare their five-year growth to the city’s median.

 

The results were astounding. Together, these high-crime suburbs delivered solid five-year growth of 38% for houses and 25% for units, largely beating the Gold Coast median price growth benchmark of 36% and 23% respectively.

 

RiskWise CEO Doron Peleg said most property investors believed high-crime rates would have a detrimental effect on property price growth, but it was apparent the opposite was true.

 

“Investors commonly attribute too much weight to crime figures and should more objectively analyse the financial risks when making property investment decisions,” Mr Peleg said.

 

“Our nationwide research actually found gentrifying suburbs with high crime typically deliver strong price growth and outperform the local benchmark.”

 

In Sydney, eight of the Top 10 high-crime areas outperformed the market due to very strong demand from owner-occupiers and investors for affordable properties.

 

On the Gold Coast, he said the key price-growth drivers in these high-crime suburbs were affordability, accessibility to the CBD and attractive local suburb features.

 

“It seems these positive factors appeared to significantly outweigh the negatives brought by high crime.” he said.

 

“Take Burleigh Heads as an example. The suburb endured one of the highest offence rates across the Gold Coast, yet it delivered exceptionally strong growth with the median price for houses increasing by 49 per cent over the past five years.”

 

While Burleigh Heads, with its median price of $810k for houses, does not fall into the affordable price bracket unless buying from interstate, it remains popular with those seeking a beachside lifestyle with easy access to shops and the M1.

 

“Miami has had a reputation as being a high-crime zone but this has not deterred both owner-occupiers and investors and has driven strong capital growth of 57 per cent in the past five years,” he said.

 

“We would normally expect to see a strong capital growth rate like this in Sydney or Melbourne.”

 

 

 

The results are similar in Brisbane and Melbourne, where high-crime areas often outperformed the market. An example is Melbourne’s Frankston North which significantly outperformed the market with a 101 per cent median price growth over the past five years.

 

While price growth in Adelaide and Perth was below the local benchmark, high-crime areas undergoing significant gentrification did delivered strong growth. For example, Prospect in Adelaide outperformed the local housing market with 26 per cent median price increase over the past five years.

 

“In summary, our research found that affordable high-crime areas with significant gentrification were likely to produce strong price growth. Whereas suburbs with high-crime and low-gentrification typically deliver growth below the local benchmark,” Mr Peleg said.