Gold Coast sales marked by stubbies, not champagne as market struggles to find its price footing
The sales were small beer, rather than champagne cork popping, at the Gold Coast's weekend prestige auctions.
Just two of the 10 prestige listings listed for Main Event, Ray White Surfers Paradise auction found buyers.
The two were sold prior, but none of the remaining seven properties put under the hammer were sold.
Another was postponed and another withdrawn. There are reports that deals on another two are close to exchange.
The multimillion-dollar mansions that didn't sell included the Cronin Island property owned by Nicole Perrin, wife of former Billabong surfwear entrepreneur Matthew Perrin, which was passed in at $5.9 million.
It was therefore well below its onetime $15 million valuation.
No bids were taken for the Bartinon mansion at 26 Marseille Court in Sorrento.
The properties that did sell before auction were in Sanctuary Cove, including a four-bedroom house sold by Ted Kunkel (pictured above), the former Fosters boss turned Billabong chairman for an undisclosed figure.
Set on Bay Hill Terrace, the expansive house was built after the 804-square-metre lakefront reserve block had cost $500,000 in 2002 when bought from Mulpha. It comes with a Florida room with conservatory-style pool overlooking the sixth, seventh and eighth holes of the Palms Golf Course.
Another Hope Island property at Anchorage Terrace sold for $3 million to an overseas buyer.
Ray White Surfers Paradise boss Andrew Bell says the crowd suggested there may be renewed interest in real estate.
The auctioning of the mid-range priced properties saw some demand.
By late Sunday more than $30 million worth of properties had sold.
The clearance rate had jumped to more than 55%, well up on last year’s level of around 30%.
“It’s a big jump,” Bell says.
“We knew something was brewing.”
While the cooling in prices on the Gold Coast had played its role, Bell told the Australian Financial Review that “a couple of interest rate drops and the belief there will be more” had stimulated the market. “We’ve got five or six bidders on most properties [and] we’re going over reserve on most properties,” he said.
About 1,000 people packed the main auction watching numerous properties sell for much less than they sold before the global financial crisis.
There was an average sale of $485,000.
The Gold Coast Bulletin reported sales included a five-bedroom Dirk Hartog Place, Hollywell house with boat ramp that sold for $1.125 million, $415,000 less than when it last sold in 2006.
A mortgagee sale of a luxury apartment in the Q1 building in Surfers Paradise that sold for $2 million in October 2006 fetched $970,000 at the auction.
