REA

Prestige Market Update

NERIDA CONISBEE

Architect-designed home on Wildcoast Road in Victoria’s popular Portsea

Holiday home rebound

Rather than being ditched during the downturn, the vacation retreat is more valued than ever

Holiday homes are usually among the first property market victims during an economic downturn, but in 2020 they were the beneficiaries. With overseas vacations on hold and interstate travel restricted, having a holiday home by the beach is particularly attractive right now.

It is not surprising, therefore, that some of Australia’s most expensive holiday destination beachside suburbs saw incredibly strong growth in 2020.

The beachside destinations with median prices over $1 million that experienced the biggest price increases in the 12 months to the end of December 2020 were mostly located in NSW.

South of Sydney, two Wollongong suburbs feature, highlighting the economic changes occurring in the area.

Austinmer experienced a jump of 40 per cent to reach a median price of $1.6 million, while East Corrimal was a newcomer to the $1 million-plus price category in 2020.

North of Sydney, parts of the Central Coast also sustained some big jumps.

Copacabana and North Avoca, not traditionally noted as luxury holiday home destinations, saw price growth exceeding 40 per cent, making it into the $1 million-plus club.

There are now five suburbs on the NSW Central Coast with prices over $1 million, with Copacabana and North Avoca joining MacMasters Beach, Avoca Beach and Wamberal.

As expected, the northern NSW towns of Byron Bay, Brunswick Heads and Bangalow made the list. They were already sustaining very high views per listing on realestate.com.au at the end of 2019. The Hemsworth effect has been driving popularity in the Byron Bay area for several years , but COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions accelerated growth even further in 2020.

There are now six towns in Richmond-Tweed with a median price over $1 million and it’s likely Pottsville will be next.

Closer to the Queensland border, Pottsville is so far relatively sleepy compared to many other beachside towns in the northern NSW part of Australia.

South East Queensland’s growth was a feature trend of 2020, and Minyama and Sunrise Beach have made the list.

While borders between Queensland, NSW and Victoria were locked down for large parts of last year, it didn’t stop property seekers from Melbourne and Sydney looking at the Sunshine Coast on realestate.com.au. Anecdotally, search activity resulted in buyer activity, with some purchases made sight unseen. Top growth beachside holiday suburbs ($1 million-plus) 12 months to December 2020

Suburb Median Price % growth

Copacabana, NSW $1,278,000

North Avoca, NSW $1,377,500

Austinmer, NSW $1,627,500

Byron Bay, NSW $1,870,000

East Corrimal, NSW $1,110,888

Bayview, NSW $2,275,000

Brunswick Heads, NSW $1,325,000

Minyama, QLD $1,405,000

Bangalow, NSW $1,200,000 52.1

43.7

40.3

36.3

30.7

28.2

26.2

25.4

24.4

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Noosa’s stunning Main Beach, which abuts the national park

JONATHAN CHANCELLOR

Paradise at a premium

One of Noosa’s biggest assets is its stunning natural environment and the internationally recognised author, poet and conservationist Nancy Cato was a huge contributor to preserving it. The prize- winning author, best known for the novel All The Rivers Run (made into a mini-series starring Sigrid Thornton and John Waters) died last year aged 83. She had a keen interest in the conservation movement around Noosa and fought hard for the environment.

The northern end of the Sunshine Coast, some 120km to the north of Brisbane, is characterised by stunning sandy beaches, dramatic mountain peaks, and a remarkably healthy river and lake system. Indeed, while Noosa Shire comprises just 1.4 per cent of the total area of South East Queensland, it contains 39 per cent of the region’s ecosystems. Integrated development designed to be at one with the landform has been the long-term aim.

Much of the so-called Noosa Style is the product of awardwinning local architecture that suits the subtropical climate and lifestyle. Ensuring that its low-key, leafy village feel is maintained is important to the Noosa community, and the resulting limit on new stock has big consequences for the near continual property price escalation.

Tom Offermann sold Noosa’s first million-dollar property, a shack on the beachfront in Webb Road owned by an Englishman, in 1989. In 2017 Noosa broke through the $10 million barrier for the first time, with a waterfront mansion at Noosaville and a Noosa North Shore beachfront property. Then in 2018 Offermann resold the Webb Road home, by then a modern seven-bedroom, eightbathroom mansion on 3595sq m, for $18 million.

These beachfront homes, canal homes, low-rise apartments on Hastings Street and hillside villas adjacent to the National Park are being snapped up in record time, with Brisbane buyers competing with escalating interstate interest, more from Melbourne than Sydney.

Even before the COVID-19-triggered surge, Noosa had registered an average compound capital growth rate of more than 9 per cent for houses over the past three decades, according to REIQ research – the highest of any shire in the state.

Prices can fall, however, and that fact was highlighted when Cintamani, the redundant 35ha Noosa hinterland retreat of USbased music producer and songwriter Mike Chapman (who famously helped pen Tina Turner’s hit song Simply the Best) sold for $4.25 million in 2017. Chapman had bought the property for $8 million in 2007.

Cintamani had been built by Austrian tennis champion Thomas Muster in the mid-1990s and featured a championship tennis court, a replica of centre court at Flushing Meadows in New York, home of the US Open. Muster had paid $1 million for the parcel in 1994 and sold his newly built home for $7.6 million in 2002 to Stephen Walker, co-founder of the debt collection agency Collection House, and his wife Sue.

Cato’s death coincided with the approval of Noosa Plan 2020, which dictates the planning scheme for future development over the next 20 years. The last plan was done in 2006, and the latest one acknowledged an imbalance between relatively lowerpaying employment opportunities, such as in the retail and hospitality sectors, and relatively higher housing costs. This reality “will cause specific problems for the Noosa Shire if not addressed”, the plan concluded.

Noosa Shire’s current residential population of 56,000 swells during holiday periods to well over 70,000 people. Its high visitor numbers and dispersed, low-density settlement pattern puts distinct pressures on local communities.

Over the next two decades, the population is expected to rise by some 9500 on the 2016 census, to about 63,000. Around threequarters of the additional residents will settle between Tewantin and Peregian Beach, with the balance in the hinterland, mostly in the villages of Cooroy, Pomona, Cooran, Kin Kin and Boreen Point. By 2041, the proportion of residents aged 65 years and over is predicted to be about 30 per cent. And perhaps likewise its billioniares’ component.