Interest in weekenders and beach houses is reaching new heights as Sydney and Melbourne homeowners capitalise on skyrocketing prices of their family homes.
But owners only just turning to the coastal market might find they have missed the boat with homes in top holiday locations including the Gold Coast and Mornington Peninsula changing hands at steep premiums to reserve.
The Eastment family on the Gold Coast could make a profit of $900,000 in less than two years selling their traditional weatherboard beach house at Mermaid Beach.
The family paid $4.1 million for the home in March last year, with plans for a total renovation, before shelving that scheme in favour of buying a completed home and installing family friend Maria Van Rissen and her daughter Zara to live in the property as it heads to market.
Ray White agent Robert Graham has listed the home for $4.95m in line with a neighbouring property in the same condition that sold for more than $4.8m three months ago.
If the Albatross Avenue home reaches $5m, it won’t be the first time. In a tale that underscores the fickle nature of the Gold Coast market, the home changed hands for $5m in 2010, before selling five years later for $4.1m
Gold Coast high-end homeowners had waited for longer than most for boom times to return, Mr Graham said, but the demand had finally hit.
“The Gold Coast beachfront market has been one of the last markets on the coast to rebound, but we’re now at a point where everything from $5m to $25m is selling,” he said.
The Gold Coast has had more $10m-plus sales this year than the previous three years combined, with Sydney and Melbourne buyers driving demand. “Their family homes in Sydney and Melbourne have appreciated, but their commercial property portfolios and businesses are continuing to thrive and that’s also making a difference,” the agent said.
Recent Gold Coast sales include a beachfront shack at Main Beach Parade, which changed hands for $8.2m in May, fetching a $2.5m premium in less than three years, after last selling for $5.75m in 2013. Another home at Albatross Avenue sold for $11.42m in April after changing hands five years previously for $8.4m.
While agents in Sydney and Byron Bay claim prices are fast overheating, and owners are sitting on their hands, buyers clamouring for homes on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula have also pushed prices above their 2008 high in well-heeled towns including Portsea, Sorrento and Mount Martha.
“The market is the best we’ve ever seen and now we’re at a point where stock has just completely dried up,” Sotheby’s agent Robert Curtain said.
Baby boomers in Melbourne, keen to switch their primary residence to the coast, were driving sales above reserve price, he said.
Recent sales include a charming, original-condition weatherboard beach house with a wraparound veranda at Point Nepean Road in Sorrento, which sold for $282,000 over reserve at $1.882m last Sunday, after 114 bids.
In the same week, a Toorak buyer paid $9.32m, $1m over reserve, for an estate fronting Bass Strait on Boneo Road, Flinders, known as The Goslings.
In Western Australia, the market is moving more slowly and a handful of ultra-prestige listings with multimillion-dollar price tags are facing long waits for purchasers.
Originally Published: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/