A Brisbane unit development has resorted to huge price cuts to move the last of its units, after years of unconventional sales tactics.

Prices for Belise apartments in Fortitude Valley were slashed nearly 25 per cent, in what the executive director of the project marketing firm called a “dramatic” price drop.

The final few apartments weren’t sold in a 20-unit sale, with the sales team appealing for offers in a close-out sale.

The selling agent did not comment.

The largest price reduction was for the last two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit, down from $632,000 to $475,000.

Buyer’s agent Pete Wargent said the fire sale showed how hard it was to move investor stock in Brisbane.

“People read a lot into it but it’s a bit indicative of the wider market. It’s the end of cycle stuff for new apartments,” he said. “It’s been quite common. If you look around, even the smaller developments are finding the final apartment or two quite difficult to sell.”

Mr Wargent said looming settlement risk for off-the-plan buyers meant developers had to be more aggressive to sell their units.

“I think that’s because the risk of the buyer having the valuation come in at lower than the sale price and then you have to fight to settle.”

Since the project was first launched more than five years ago, the developer of Belise offered a five-year settlement deferment plan, with a minimum deposit of $60,000.

“It might appeal to someone who has no way of getting a mortgage in the next year or two,” Mr Wargent said. “In five years’ time if the market hasn’t improved you can walk away and lose your 60 grand but… I wouldn’t be jumping at it.”

From what he could tell, Mr Wargent said the building was struggling to secure tenants, too.

“I think it’d be fair to say they’re getting tenants but it’s not easy in the current market.”

Brisbane-based economist Kerrianne Meulman said the market was still soft in Brisbane, with an oversupply of low-end one- and two-bedroom apartments.

“There’ll be still more apartment stock to come,” she said. “The delivery of stock is slowing and that will be absorbed in the market. That’s just going to be the way that market will continue in the short- to medium-term.”

Ms Meulman said recent upticks in migration to Brisbane were being squandered, as demand for certain property types was going unmet.

“I can still see there is a missing middle in the Brisbane market and that’s townhouses, owner-occupier stock, and middle-ring suburbs; and that’s still at play,” she said. “In that sense there is still a mismatch in the stock that’s being delivered and the people who want to live there.”