Property’s luxury end pushes 30pc growth

Luxury real estate sales, especially in some Sydney suburbs, are being negotiated at 30 per cent price hikes.

This luxury two-level home at 68 Hopetoun Avenue, Vaucluse, could benefit from high prices.

Luxury real estate sales, particularly across the wealth belt of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, are being negotiated at 30 per cent price increases, as stock levels continue to tighten.

Research house CoreLogic flagged 19 per cent annual growth across the Sydney market in the past year and 16 per cent in Melbourne.

But eastern suburbs agents say their top end market is growing at levels as high as 25-30 per cent.

“There’s been more growth in the top end of the market in the past 12 to 18 months than there has been in the balance of the normal residential market,” says Ray White Double Bay director Craig Pontey.

“The top end values definitely outstripped normal growth markets in some respects by 25-30 per cent growth.

“If a property was valued at $10 million last year it is now valued at the $13m end of the market; growth has been that strong.”

Mr Pontey says the only way the top tier of the eastern suburbs market will start dropping will be if businesses start struggling for access to capital.

“It could drop off, and we might see a 5-8 per cent slowdown,” he said.

One beneficiary of the price rises could be the vendors of a luxury two-level Vaucluse home in 68 Hopetoun Avenue, which is being marketed by Ray White Double Bay at about $6.25m.

In Melbourne, Kay & Burton chairman Gerald Delany said the suburbs of Armidale, Toorak, Malvern and Hawthorn had growth of 20 per cent or more over the past year.

Mr Delany agreed there had been 16 per cent growth across the broader Melbourne market. At the top end of the market it was not uncommon for properties to sell between 10 per cent and 15 per cent above expectations, he added.