Now is the time to buy a Forest Lake property for your investment portfolio
Forest Lake was recently named in the highly coveted Smart Property Investment Fast 50 ranking for 2024, which was released to the public earlier this month. The report and ranking combine the insights of a 14-strong investment expert panel and recent housing performance drawn from open-source data and aim to give unparalleled insight into the Australian suburbs that are primed for future growth.
Based on the data from CoreLogic, Forest Lake offers an entry into the Brisbane market that is well below the median house price in the Sunshine State capital. The first master-planned community within Queensland, the average home price in the leafy suburb goes for $688,000. The median value for a house in Greater Brisbane as of April 2023 was $781,881.
Why buy Forest Lake property now?
Despite a dampened market off the back of interest rate rises that dominated most of the past year, homes in Forest Lake still rose by 21.4 per cent over the previous 12 months. The average annual growth sits still in healthy territory, at 6.6 per cent. And with gross rental yields sitting at 3.9 per cent, Forest Lake represents a good buy for investors looking to capitalise on continued interest in Brisbane, especially ahead of the 2032 Olympics that will be hosted in the region.
And while during its inception, the suburb may have lacked the established charm of the leafy suburbs that it abutted, 30 years later, Forest Lake is proof that good planning pays off. The young trees are now grown, and the 2.7-kilometre perimeter of the lake looks completely natural to South-East Queensland’s habitat. Indeed, as Smart Property Investment’s Phil Tarrant and Pure Property Investment’s Paul Glossop noted during a recent discussion, Forest Lake’s place on the list is testament to seeing the long-term potential in up-and-coming suburbs — literally, when they’re being built from the ground up.
They noted, “Forest Lake shows that there’s value in getting in on the ground floor. A community created entirely by urban planners, it’s been mindfully thought out and shows how new developments can ultimately deliver on their promise.”
Master-planned communities might not have the charm some buyers are after while the site is still partly under construction and the buildings, flora, and local amenities are all brand new, but if the groundwork has been laid carefully, they’ll become well-established in no time.
A hallmark for investors is to find a suburb where supply is constrained, and there is not a proliferation of high-rise towers. Forest Lake ticks all the boxes
