Brisbane’s luxury apartment sales show no signs of a slowdown

Two record luxury penthouse deals in some of Brisbane’s best suburbs have been struck in as many weeks, defying general market doom and gloom.

Cavcorp’s Luminare residences at Newstead.

Luxury penthouse apartments in Brisbane are selling for price records in defiance of the broader market.

Two deals in excess of $10m have been signed during the past two weeks.

The top-floor apartment of Cavcorp’s Luminare residences in Newstead last week became the city’s most expensive apartment by square metre, selling for $12.95m or $24,000 per square metre.

It followed the $15.75m sale of a New Farm apartment off the plan last week within Spyre Group’s boutique Moray project.

Renders of Cavcorp’s Luminare residences at Newstead.

Newstead’s new hottest address was not officially on the market when the local couple was brought forward by Place Ascot principal Patrick McKinnon, who had been trying to find the downsizers their perfect home.

The sale left just one more penthouse available.

Mr McKinnon, who lives in a Cavcorp building with his family, said locals were seeking apartments that were the size of a house with the security of being high in the sky.

“It’s just a very good lifestyle for people and over the years (demand) is just getting more and more,” Mr McKinnon said.

“All those buildings on New Farm’s Oxlade Drive (have sold out) purely because of all these people just wanting to sell the family home and move into an apartment in New Farm and Newstead.”

The Cavcorp project at Newstead overlooks the city.

Luminare has a rooftop urban oasis featuring a cantilevered glass-bottom 25m rooftop pool that overlooks the growing city, as well as magnesium wellness spas, saunas and steam rooms, and a fitness centre.

The two deals are in stark contrast to the broader Brisbane market, which is experiencing its largest and fastest decline on record, just seven months after values hit their peak. After climbing 43 per cent through the pandemic, prices have now dropped 10.9 per cent since prices topped out in June.

But the blue-chip unit market is holding. Prices for the top 2 per cent of apartments in the River City peaked back in July at $1.08m and had not budged by the end of the year.

Cavcorp’s Luminare residences at Newstead have a “health and wellness” focus.

International and interstate migrants have helped to underpin the top end of the southeast Queensland market, CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said.

“It seems the high end or the very high end of the market is seeing more resilience, which is pretty counter to some of the broad narratives that we get around the housing market,” Ms Owen said.

“Rising interest rates through this cycle have created a strong reaction in the housing market overall … but at the high end people may be less reliant on housing loans and might have other assets that they’re diversifying from, or they might have a larger source of capital.

“Maybe they’re seeing now as an opportunity to buy in the market before it sees further increases off the back of things like the Olympics or the full return of migration.”

An artist's impression of the view from the top apartment of “Moray” at New Farm.

There was little choice in the top end of the market but plenty of buyers competing, according to Cohen Handler Queensland managing director Jordan Navybox.

“Both sales are a testament to the low-stock environment in the $10m-plus space,” he said.

Mr McKinnon believed top-end prices would only go up, and the data was yet to take in these record deals and others like them.

“All these buildings that are 70 to 80 per cent sold out have not even settled yet,” he said.

“So, you’re about to see over the next 12 months to two years all the sales come through.”