Interstate buyers decline amid surging Gold Coast OTP apartment sales

Off-the-plan apartment sales on the Gold Coast jumped in the recent quarter to be some 45 per cent higher than the prior quarter, according to property consultant company Urbis’ latest figures.
Interstate buyers decline amid surging Gold Coast OTP apartment sales
Cascade
Staff reporterDecember 7, 2020

Off-the-plan apartment sales on the Gold Coast jumped in the recent quarter to be some 45 per cent higher than the prior quarter, according to property consultant company Urbis’ latest figures.

The Gold Coast has five of the top 10 best-selling projects nationwide.

Urbis senior consultant Lynda Campbell said it had “definitely been a good start to the year”.

The report, released today, found new apartment activity in the first quarter of 2019 was up by more than 70 sales from the December 2018 quarter.

“Most of the developers on the Gold Coast are meeting the market,” Ms Campbell told The Gold Coast Bulletin.

“The top-selling projects have been boutique and targeted at owner-occupiers and that’s what the market is looking for at the moment.”

There were 231 new apartment sales recorded from January to March.

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom pads made up 65 per cent of sales.

There are 2800 apartments under construction on the Glitter Strip, of which 62 percent are earmarked for completion this year.

The report found interstate investors have held back in 2019, claiming 25 per ent of sales, down from 42 per cent in the final quarter of 2018.

Foreign investors secured almost a quarter.

The southern beaches precinct, which stretched from Mermaid Beach to Tweed Heads, had more than 60 per cent of sales for the quarter – the highest level ­recorded for the area in the past five years.

In the first quarter last year the stretch only accounted for 25 per cent of sales.

It was also home to all of the four new projects launched across the Gold Coast.

Mali, the new 55 apartment block developed by Dankav has six of its levels having only three apartments per floor. The curved BDA Architecture-designed building is set to be completed in mid 2020. It has a residents swimming pool on level nine, half way up the 17 level tower, located right on the border of Broadbeach and Mermaid Beach.

Knight Frank director and Queensland head of project marketing Chris Litfin, noted many developers had bought land between Mermaid Beach and Tweed Heads because it offered better value compared to other blocks closer to existing infrastructure.

“They can provide a product near the beach at a low price point,” he said.

The majority of those developments were considered boutique, which Mr Litfin said included between 60 and 120 apartments.

The report noted an average sales price of $788,312.

The number of cranes from apartment projects on the Gold Coast skyline has surged.

There are 30 cranes on the Glitter Strip – seven more than six months ago - according to the latest Rider Levett Bucknall Crane Index.

The director of RLB’s Gold Coast office, Jim Krebs, said the Gold Coast has the fifth highest number of cranes in Australia after Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Krebs noted there had been a fall in the value of residential construction projects starting and underway, with a shift towards smaller mid-rise towers.

The newly installed cranes included Vue Apartments and Elysian in Broadbeach while cranes were removed from the 40-level Qube in Broadbeach. Every light in the Qube was switched on for half an hour on one night in January earlier this year to celebrate the finished product. 

An earlier Urbis report found the average sale price for the new boutique offerings had jumped $100,000 to more than $700,000 since 2017.  

In part it is because developers have been offering a bigger apartment size, blocks no longer modelled on a hotel, where apartments are squeezed in to every level.

Nowadays developers often design four apartments per floor which allows each to occupy a corner of the building which offers two different viewpoints.

The other trend is whole floor.

31BB, named after its address at 31 Broadbeach Boulevard, has committed to this grander scale, the whole floor offering.

The $65 million Woods Bagot-designed project has 22 apartments across its 20 levels. 

There are just eight remaining.

Selling agent Andrew Bampton says the buyers are typically aged 45 and over who are either downsizing or rightsizing as they say now, but still want size, luxury, quality interiors and an oceanside location.

"They are not retiring from life but are looking for a lock and leave lifestyle with no maintenance, in proximity to dining and entertaining options," Bampton says.

Bampton says the other key buyer group is a similar age, however are setting the apartment up as their second residence.

"People from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne have taken a keen interest in 31 Broadbeach," Bampton suggested, adding it was owner occupier only.

31BB is slated for completion next year by Optimus Developments which is headed by Andrew Karpati.

“Broadbeach already has a strong sense of community," Karpati noted.

A 305 sqm, three bedroom, three bathroom beach house takes up the ground floor, while the top floor is occupied by a four bedroom penthouse. 

Both have their own pools. The beach house is still for sale.

The residents communal amenities sit on level 20, where there's a 15 metre heated lap pool. 

On launch the full-floor 280 sqm residences featuring three bedrooms and three bathrooms started from $3.05 million.

In recent years Broadbeach has seen billions proposed in investment, led by the upgrade to The Star Gold Coast Casino. More than $2 billion will be spent with up to seven towers rise on the site. It follows the $670 million expansion and renovation of Pacific Fair Shopping Centre. Broadbeach was in the second stage of the Gold Coast Light Rail.

There's around 6500 apartments at Broadbeach which is set for the imminent launch of its highest beachfront residential tower, the 54 floor, 170 metre CLASS Broadbeach.

It will sit next to the area's current tallest building, the eastern Oracle tower.

CLASS Broadbeach will have 46 apartments, including 34 full-floor three bedroom apartments. There will be five two-level sky homes and a three-level penthouse.

It might not be the tallest as veteran developer John Potter has plans for a 68-storey twin super tower fo 2022 completion.

Vue Broadbeach by Andrews Projects, is nearing completion and nearing a sellout.

The $75-million First Avenue tower Vue, due to completed later this year, has achieved a 90 per cent sales rate.  

Its penthouse fetched $5 million

The elliptical-shaped building has 71 apartments over 25 levels with a typical four apartments per floor.

The remaining apartments are two and three bedrooms, with open planned living spaces and ocean views.

"We are seeing a trend of local over 50’s looking to downsize, and Brisbane buyers looking for quality lock up weekenders," sales executive Sarah Andrews said.

Proximity to the Broadbeach Bowls Club was a major factor for one retired couple who will be downsizing from their large Clear Island Waters home.

It’s the sixth highrise project for the local family developer Andrews Projects, and their first in Broadbeach, which will be followed by Encore, a $78 million apartment building on Britannia Avenue which will have 86 residences across 25 storeys expected to be completed by late 2020. 

Elysian, the $79 million Spyre Group project, will also a typical four per floor configuration across the 21 level luxury tower, set on the beachfront reserve Old Burleigh Road opposite Pratten Park. Elysian will have 61 apartments including two half-floor sub-penthouses starting at $3.4 million and two full-floor four bedroom, four bathroom penthouses priced at $4.7 million.

Sprye has installed new technology My Butler, a 24/7 virtual concierge which can book Elysian facilities, transport, cleaners and a car-wash among other services.

My Butler also has a building events calendar, along with the Elysian community portal which will have up to date notices on the building and its management.

Its basement car parking also features innovative technology, the Gold Coast’s first residential hi-tech automated vehicle storage system.

There have been amalgamations by some off the plan buyers, including Sydney couple who had not visited the Gold Coast in more than a decade, but will soon be able to visit whenever they want having amalgamated two apartments giving them a four-bedroom, three-bathroom holiday residence. 

Elysian Broadbeach is now 80 percent sold with construction by Hutchinson Builders expected to be completed in early 2020.

CBRE director of residential projects Nicholas Clydsdale sold 25 apartments in the first three months of marketing in early 2018. 

Its three bedrooms are priced from $1,340,000.

Koko at Broadbeach will have four apartments per floor throughout its 31 level tower by Morris Property Group.

The 100 apartment boutique development at 12-14 Elizabeth Avenue included five, three-bedroom half-floor sub-penthouses.

The level five, resident-only floor features Koko's resort-style amenities such as a pool, spa and a yoga lawn.

Half of the 94 two bedroom apartments are sold.

Chris Litfin is handling the marketing for the developer Barry Morris. 

Litfin said owner-occupiers had been spurring the top end of the Gold Coast market.

“While once luxury would have been totally categorised as penthouses and sub-penthouses, now luxury is wrapped in the location and the amenity of the offering."

Since 2002 there have been around 125 sales above $2 million in Broadbeach, topping out in 2015 at $8 million in Oracle, which accounts for around a quarter of the luxury sales.

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