Covid-19 creates losses for Brisbane River house sales
Residents along Brisbane River stayed at home as prices dropped as the city’s housing market reacted to fallout from the pandemic.
Brisbane River house sales fell 14 per cent to $132.9m last year, while house sale prices were down 2 per cent as the city’s housing market reacted to the hit created by COVID-19.
The 2021 River Report from Johnston Dixon, compares residential real estate sales and volumes along the serpentine river last year to pre-COVID 2019 levels.
It found the number of sales and the prices were affected by the pandemic, with 30 absolute riverfront house sales of more than $2m for the year down 11 per cent from last year’s 34 absolute riverfront sales.
The report’s co-author, John Johnston of Johnston Dixon, said no amount of vision could have foreseen the ravages of 2020, but there had been a strong finish in terms of sales in the second half of the year, with the momentum continuing into early 2021.
“With cheap finance available, improving business confidence, low supply, Australia being seen as the ultimate safe harbour from COVID, and increasing demand particularly from expats pulling up stumps overseas and also from interstaters doing the same, the ingredients are there for a solid and protracted reversal of fortune for the river,” Mr Johnston said.
The amount of sales negotiated along the river also dropped in 2020 by 12 per cent, with 36 transactions during the year compared with 41 in 2019. The average riverfront house sale price was $3.691m, down from last year’s record price of $3.787m.
However, there were some good performances in individual suburbs.
The well-established suburb of Chelmer was Brisbane’s top-performing river suburb for the third year in a row with five sales totalling $23.95m at an average sale price of $4.79m, which was up 34 per cent on last year’s average sale price of $3.564m.
Hawthorne had the highest sale of the year, at $9.9m for 90 Virginia Avenue, a 1619sq m estate positioned high above the river and with sweeping views.
The cost for absolute riverfront land dropped nearly 30 per cent over the year, from $2.183m to $1.546m via just four sales, but Mr Johnston said this reflected the fact that there were few vacant riverfront house sites left.
“The highest absolute riverfront land sale for the year was the $2.275m paid for a compact 461sq m of land at 110 Quay Street, Bulimba,” Mr Johnston said.
But there were strong riverfront development site sales last year, with $34.05m from four sales and an increase of 60 per cent in value from last year’s $21.15m.
“Leading the charge was the $15m paid for iconic Shafston House, with its massive frontage to the river across its equally grand 9958sq m of land at 23 Castlebar Street, Kangaroo Point, the site right on the southeastern verge of the CBD,” Mr Johnston said.
“Riverside house sales likewise experienced a home-grown boom with both volume and total value up a hefty 48 per cent year on year, from 27 to 40, and $55m to $82m respectively.”
The grand total of all riverfront and riverside houses, land and site sales for the year was $259.3m, 11 per cent short of the all-time record $295.9m set in 2007, said Johnston Dixon’s riverfront sales director, Josephine Johnston-Rowel.
“While understandably some of the broader river sales indices have come off given the paralysing effect of COVID at home and abroad, that they didn’t come off a great deal more is something we should celebrate as testament to the enduring, unique appeal of river property,” Ms Johnston-Rowel said.
“Fortunately this latest river market interruption, like so many of those before it, only appears temporary. As we came out of COVID’s grip in the second half of the year, market sentiment turned on a dime and incredibly we saw four of the year’s all-time record five absolute riverfront house sales over $7m set.
“If stock levels can now recover, there is no reason short of another COVID-like shock for that positive momentum not to continue or even gather pace.”
