As lockdown fever bites, lifestyle buyers are flocking to the Gold Coast

Gold Coast developers are fielding inquiries from interstate and even international buyers driven by COVID-19 to downsize, holiday, or retire.

The Siarn Palm Beach project.

Gold Coast developers are fielding inquiries from interstate and even international buyers driven by COVID-19 to downsize, holiday, or retire in southeast Queensland.

An Australian expat in Florida recently paid more than $2.5m for an apartment in the yet-to-complete $40m Siarn project, by developer Chris Bolger, of The Cru Collective.

A further two $2.5m apartments were recently purchased by interstate buyers in the project fronting 460 The Esplanade in Palm Beach.

Explaining the popularity of the Siarn project Bolger says if any of the 231sq m units were similarly positioned on Sydney’s Bondi Beach they would be worth $10m apiece.

“That’s what appeals to southern buyers,” he says, adding that while Sydney prices were exploding in 2014, 2015 and 2016, Gold Coast real estate prices remained stable.

“There is a big disparity between the states for comparable product,’’ he adds.

All apartments in the 16-unit block feature three bedrooms with ensuites and a powder room, plus two car spaces. “But the real key is the location, which is pretty unique given it’s a corner block right on the beach just 1km from Burleigh Heads,” says Bolger.

Apart from the American-based buyer the remaining purchasers hail from either Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne and are either owner-occupiers or lifestyle buyers looking to escape the big cities.

No 1 Grant Avenue in Hope Island.

Recently, at the height of the COVID-19 driven lockdown, a couple from Wollongong, south of Sydney, who are nearing retirement age, purchased an apartment and marina berth at a $140m project known as 1 Grant Avenue at the Gold Coast’s Hope Island. “We are talking completely sight unseen, we didn’t even facetime with him,” says developer George Mastrocostas, of the Aniko Group.

Since its launch one year ago, 99 out of the 105 apartments at 1 Grant Avenue have sold for an average of $600,000 each.

“The majority of our purchasers have been from southeast Queensland and the owner-occupier market.

“It’s a good downsizer option in the northern Gold Coast corridor on a prime waterfront development site in Hope Island,” Mastrocostas says.

Meanwhile, the $77m Flow Residences project on the southern Gold Coast won approval for development earlier this week. Launched in late June, just one apartment is still for sale. Apartments were priced from $1.185m to $10m and two of the buyers were once world champion surfers.

Two apartments on Goodwin Terrace, where two projects are underway, also recently sold for between $3m and $5m.

But property developers are finding it increasingly difficult to secure sites on the Gold Coast with Mimi Macpherson’s 15-year-old apartment block, Aspect, demolished to pave the way for a new project, the $77m Natura on the Burleigh Heads Esplanade.

Developer Spyre Group is developing Natura, which features 33 three-bedroom apartments on the Burleigh Heads Esplanade. The project on the former Macpherson site is nearing completion and almost all are sold.