Melburnians fork out millions to buy a summer holiday by the beach

Million dollar holiday homes in Phillip Island, Point Lonsdale and Portsea are selling like hot cakes as Melburnians desperately try to lock in a summer break.

Million dollar holiday homes are selling like hot cakes as Melburnians desperately try to lock in a summer break.

Real estate agents from Phillip Island and Point Londsale to Portsea said beach houses of all descriptions and at all price points were being snapped up in record time.

Some on the Mornington Peninsula are selling for millions of dollars, to Melbourne families seeking an extended holiday but unable to travel overseas because of border closures.

Phillip Island real estate agent Michael McLeod of First National said he had increased staff hours just to handle the skyrocketing number of inquiries for properties in Cowes, with

vendors seemingly able to name their price.

“It’s unprecedented … we just don’t have the stock to meet the demand for sales and if you’re talking permanent rentals and you walk into my office today, I physically have nothing on my books to rent you,” he said.

Mr McLeod said the number of Melburnians seeking a sea change after COVID was far beyond expectations.

Melburnians are spending-big in coastal towns, buying million-dollar holiday homes as an alternative to overseas travel. Picture: File.

One property on Phillip Island had recently sold for up to $5 million and another for more than $3 million — prices that people would have laughed at two years ago.

Most holiday homes on the island were selling for more than half-a-million dollars.

Felix Hakins, of RT Edgar Bellarine, said people were paying more than double that for holiday homes in coastal Point Lonsdale, Queenscliff, Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove.

“Sales around the $1 million dollar mark are really, really strong,” Mr Hakins said.

“We’ve just been inundated with inquiries … and we are receiving multiple offers on the one property … in my 20 years in real estate I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Kay and Burton director Liz Jensen, who has sold homes in exclusive Portsea, Sorrento and Blairgowrie for 35 years, has been working up to 16 hours a day to negotiate sales.

Ms Jensen said more Melburnians were looking to buy holiday homes close to the beach, as lockdown had allowed them to save and drove interest rates down.

She also said properties priced from about $1 million to more than $20 million were being quickly snapped up as holiday homes, as most buyers wanting to settle and move in before Christmas.

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