Its back in the market! AFTER years in the doldrums the luxury Brisbane riverfront property market is back, with buyers forking out a record $147 million snapping up waterfront mansions in the past year.
Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart’s $14m purchase of an estate fronting the serpentine river that winds through Brisbane no doubt contributed to a 50 per cent jump in house sales in four key riverfront suburbs — Hawthorne, Bulimba, East Brisbane and Norman Park — between 2013 and last year.
Johnston Dixon’s 2015 River Report, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, reveals that 43 absolute-riverfront houses sold last year, smashing the 2010 record achieved just before the devastating Brisbane floods a year later.
“It’s a surprise it took so long for the market to recover, after the 1974 floods the property market recovered in just two years,” Johnston Dixon Property chief executive John Johnston says. “This time after the 2011 floods it has taken nearly four years for the riverfront property market to recover.
“But we are not only dealing with the psychological effect of the floods, we are also still dealing with the global financial crisis.”
Hawthorne, Bulimba, East Brisbane and Norman Park accounted for 60 per cent, or $84m, of sales along the river last year, with an average price of more than $5m paid per house, according to the report, which will be released next week.
Rinehart’s purchase of the historic Cramsie in Aaron Avenue, Hawthorne, smashed all records given the magnificent colonial home spans five absolute-riverfront blocks totalling 3457sq m. Rinehart subsequently bought a plot next door, shelling out another $4m.
The price of vacant absolute-riverfront land along the Brisbane River also shot up 38 per cent last year while the number of riverside house sales — defined as a house separated from the river by a road or council parkland strip — jumped 40 per cent.
Johnston says increased interest in properties valued at more than $5m last year was driven by low interest rates coupled with the expectation that mainland Chinese buyers were about to hit the Sunshine State.
“There seems to be a turnaround presently, driven by a number of factors. Property has been flat in Brisbane for some time. We know Chinese buyers had a massive impact on Sydney and we see them coming over the hill,” Johnston says.
“Luxury house listings are rock bottom but buyer urgency is re-emerging as a result of the influx of Chinese buyers and low interest rates.
“The floods really stopped luxury riverfront housing in Brisbane.”
Now the $5m-plus housing market is back.
Source: theaustralian.com.au