THE Gold Coast has joined the jetset playgrounds of the Cote d’Azur and Ibiza as an investment mecca for the world’s multi-millionaires.
And the Gold Coast being mentioned in the same breath as Monte Carlo, Nice and Saint-Tropez is down to the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report, in its tenth year, has selected the Coast for the first time citing foreign demand for second homes, property investment and a lower dollar as other factors drawing the rich and famous.
“A popular second-home destination, the arrival of the Commonwealth Games in 2018 has kickstarted investment with a new light-rail system and a AU$200m airport expansion planned,” it said.
“Competitive prices, compared with Australia’s top cities, plus strong fundamentals — population growth and expanding tourism — underpin demand.”
The report is an analysis of the performance of prime property markets internationally to track wealth trends.
Leading demographer Bernard Salt said the Gold Coast had become to Asia what southern France was to Europe.
“You need to be about four or five hours away by plane … you want a First World place where there are casinos, health, golf courses, where there’s a critical mass of people like the Coast,” he said. “Ibiza has it, Cote d’Azur has it, Jupiter Island has it, Cayman has it … the Gold Coast has it.”
REIQ zone chairman John Newlands said in the next year the Gold Coast’s popularity among the wealthiest could be comparable with the prosperity of Monte Carlo of old.
“The wealthy will follow each other and you see that in suburbs on the Gold Coast … they congregate with those of the same sort of ilk,” he said. Knight Frank Gold Coast managing director Mark Witheriff said the investment predicted in the report had already started.
“If you look at the premium developments on the Coast in the last seven or eight years there is no doubt some of the high net worth individuals have been investing in the city,” he said.
Original Publish: http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/