Sellers bet the house on high-end boom

A luxury property in Brisbane shot up $500k in value in days, as the top end of the market across the country takes off.

Cameron and Courtney Black, with daughters Arabella, 11, Persia, 16, Matisse, 18, and Inais, 21, at their home in Alderley, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

A luxury property on the edge of the Brisbane River shot up in value by half a million dollars in a matter of days, selling for $9.5m in an off-market sale as the top end of the housing market across the country takes off.

Balaam, at one time Brisbane’s most expensive home, was sold in November for $9m to a buyer on contract after being for sale for more than two years. The property at Hamilton, in the city’s ­affluent north, sits on three land titles, with the purchaser intending to sell one as vacant land once the deal was complete.

Within days of the property settling, a second buyer was introduced into the deal by Place New Farm agent Heath Williams. The buyer, a Brisbane local, had been struggling to find a property on enough land and was willing to pay an additional $500,000 in order to secure the prime spot, bringing the total sale to $9.5m.

33B Harbour Street, Hamilton, better known as Balaam, was sold for $9.5m this month.

The second deal was finalised on Friday and highlights the strengthening high-end property market in Australia, with price growth accelerating over the past three months.

International property firm Knight Frank’s annual Wealth Report released last week predicts prime property prices — the top 5 per cent of the market — will increase 3 per cent in Perth and Sydney, 2 per cent in Brisbane, and 1 per cent in Melbourne this year.

Head of residential research Michelle Ciesielski said the growth was sustainable: “On a global scale, we are expected to do quite well post-pandemic.”

Mr Williams said 2021 had proved busy already, with cheap money and a desire to upgrade for space and amenity driving high-end buyers’ decisions.

“Some properties that were struggling on the market last year are now getting cash offers at their asking price,” Mr Williams said.

Local Brisbane sellers Cam­eron and Courtney Black are hoping the heat of the market will help with the auction of their home later this month. The fully renovated luxury Queenslander — on almost 1500sq m just 6km north of the CBD at Alderley — is expected to set a suburb record.

“We decided to sell over Christmas now that our eldest two are looking likely to move out sometime soon,” Ms Black said.

“It is luck that it’s a good market, but looking at what is happening, it seemed to us that auction was the best way to bring out the buyers.”

The home at 20 Plymouth Street, Alderley was listed by Judy Goodger of Place New Farm this week and has already received the attention of expat, interstate and local buyers. It will go to auction on March 28.

REA Group chief economist Nerida Conisbee said the number of views per listing on properties priced over $10m had increased 150 per cent at the end of 2020 compared to before the pandemic. She predicts the number of $3m-plus suburbs will double in 2021.

Balaam’s original listing agent Matt Lancashire of Ray White New Farm refused to comment on the sale when contacted by The Weekend Australian to protect the privacy of vendors and sellers.

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