SIGNS are emerging that the Gold Coast apartment market has stabilised, with a clearance sale of high-rise stock and first-home owner demand boosting activity.

According to the Midwood Queensland Investment Report, to be released this week, Queensland high-rise apartment sales in the May quarter were about half those of the previous corresponding period.

There were 116 high-rise units sold in Queensland in the May quarter, compared with 315 in the same period last year, with the Gold Coast hardest hit, The Australian reports.

High-rise Gold Coast unit sales dived from 248 in the three months to May 2008 to just 79 for the same period this year, despite more stock on offer.

However, the latest result is an improvement on previous quarters. Bill Morris, author of the Midwood Report, said he thought the worst was over, with just 37 and 49 sales in the previous two quarters respectively.

"We have probably hit the bottom of the market," he said.

Demand was strongest at the bottom end, with almost half of the recorded Gold Coast high-rise sales recorded at the Brighton on Broadwater complex by the Harry Triguboff-backed company Meriton.

Most buyers paid less than $500,000 and a Meriton spokesman said 30 per cent were first-home buyers.

In a fire sale by listed developer Sunland, launched in December and concluded in March, apartments sold at discounts of up to 15 per cent in the $650,000 to $1.2million range.

Sunland said it had now sold all of its units in its Circle onCavill and Avalon towers, with 82 sales since late last year. Industry sources said apartments in residential towers that would normally sell for well over $1m have had their prices slashed by 25 per cent in the past year.

But they were not expected to decline further.

Read more in The Australian.