Kingscliff, Casuarina offer fertile grounds for ‘bargain’ hunters
More affordable than Byron Bay and quieter than the Gold Coast, Kingscliff and Casuarina in northern NSW offer value for money to prestige property buyers.
More affordable than Byron Bay and quieter than the Gold Coast, the northern NSW sleeper suburbs of Kingscliff and Casuarina have become fertile hunting ground for cashed-up prestige property buyers seeking a lifestyle change and value for money.
The vibrancy of the neighbouring suburbs, less than 15km south of the NSW/Queensland border, has been underpinned by record sales and a raft of multimillion-dollar beachfront listings in the region’s sought-after streets.
LJ Hooker Kingscliff associate director Carol Witheriff says the Tweed was a huge beneficiary of lifestyle-led migration through Covid and was in new territory thanks to the lifestyle proposition, value and infrastructure investments.
“Covid put us on the map,” she says. “People realised they can work in a beautiful location with a great lifestyle and the value was much better than other coastal areas.”
Already benefiting from its proximity to the Gold Coast International Airport, a 20-minute drive, the Tweed’s appeal has improved further since Covid thanks to major infrastructure investments such as the newly opened $723m Tweed Hospital.
Witheriff says the area was maturing with its new roads, shops and quality schools to attracting out-of-area buyer interest from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“We saw a lot of Sydneysiders arrive during Covid; they rented for six months and now they’ve purchased,” she says.
“These are people who would previously have considered the Gold Coast or Byron Bay but those places have become very busy and here they’re seeing a much brighter and more beautiful environment to live in.”
As one of Australia’s top 10 regional markets, the Gold Coast-Tweed region remains at peak value with a median dwelling value of $964,234 at the close of April 2024, according to CoreLogic’s latest Regional Market Update. Byron Bay has the most expensive housing of all regional areas at $1,764,406. Record transactions, on and off the beachfront, is helping drive the market’s growth.
Last month a record $8.95m was paid for Nanuku, a brand-new Jayson Pate-designed Mediterranean-inspired beachfront home at 37 Cylinders Drive, Kingscliff.
This was closely followed by 83 Cylinders Drive, Kingscliff which sold in late May for $8.35m to a Sydney buyer.
The market will face another test this month with the listing of 41 Cylinders Drive, Kingscliff, at a price guide of $8m-plus.
Cylinders Drive, considered the region’s premier address, is a relatively new extension of Kingscliff, with the oldest properties along the beachfront street no more than 10 years old.
“We’ve seen an enormous increase in Cylinders Drive pricing because they are the only quarter acre blocks in our region,” Witheriff says.
“Each of these houses are different in style and design, but they all have one thing in common and that’s the block size and beach access.”
Sports Events Services founder and director Ricky Swindale, along with wife Jacky, made the move from the Sunshine Coast to Casuarina in August 2023.
With family ties in the area, the timing of their move played a significant role, and they found their perfect property before values took off prior to the completion of the hospital. “It’s a quieter more laid-back lifestyle here than the Sunshine Coast,” Ricky says.
“It’s not cheaper, but it’s more like a county town. There’s fewer people and less traffic, and it’s a lot like the Sunshine Coast was 20 years ago.”
LS Properties principal Lorna Savage has lived in Casuarina for more than 20 years and was among the first buyers in 2001, when she and her family emigrated from California.
Attracted to the area for its pristine beaches and affordable property prices, she has witnessed Casuarina’s transformation from a little-known “boonies” area to a sought-after coastal haven.
“People who move here are active, they want to be part of a great community, they want to walk and bike to places easily, eat at great restaurants,” she says. “Buyers tell me they don’t want to deal with the traffic around Brisbane, or live among cranes on the Gold Coast, so they come here.”
Her new listing, Black on Blackwattle, eschews the neutral tones of the typical Casuarina coastal home, drawing inspiration from tropical modernist architect Geoffrey Bawa with its concrete and charcoal-hued palette.
The four-bedroom property at 39 Black Wattle Circuit, Casuarina occupies a 390sq m beachfront reserve and has a price guide of $5.5m.
“We’ve had good inquiries and particularly good interest from Melbourne. It is a sophisticated beach home, it’s very easy to look after, lock up and leave so I believe the buyer profile would be someone with a city flavour,” she says.
Having seen ‘quite a lot of stock sell for incredible numbers’ in the past six months, including properties off the beachfront for $4m, she said buyers in the top end were particularly active.
“If buyers in that range are on the hunt for something and they see it, they’ll buy it. They’re not effected by what’s happening in the economy and most of them, cashed up empty nesters or families, don’t want a renovator. They want something finished and done.”
