Under-radar Peregian Beach celebrates a $7.5m Sunshine Coast sale

With the Sunshine Coast prestige housing spotlight mostly on Noosa, Peregian Beach often goes under the radar.

58 Kingfisher Drive, Peregian Beach sold for $7.5m.

With the Sunshine Coast prestige housing spotlight mostly on Noosa, Peregian Beach often goes under the radar.

But last week local estate agent Karen Harman secured a record $7.5m sale at the coastal town just 10km south of bustling Hastings St.

It was a near beachside Kingfisher Drive property with a newly built home designed by Aboda Design Group.

“This gem is indeed beachside luxury like no other!” the marketing by Harman Properties advised. There’s a wet edge pool at the home with four bedrooms and four bathrooms on its 1000sq m cul-de-sac block. Set just a 300m stroll to the beach, it’s been bought by a buyer from the south of the border.

The $5m prior Peregian Beach record was set in April for a 2017-built home, having been listed for just two weeks. Before that Peregian’s record was back to 2007 at $4.9m on Pitta Street, which came after the home was on the market for 490 days.

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Record revealed

At the nearby Sunshine Beach, SafetyCulture founder and CEO Luke Anear is the confirmed $21m record setter. The home was bought recently from Sonya Evans, the wife of David Evans, the former AFL Bombers chairman. They’d paid $14m in 2018 through Tom Offermann and Nic Hunter at Tom Offermann Real Estate. Michael Lynagh, the retired rugby great, briefly owned the property, selling in 2001 for $1,435,000.

It comes with some 41m of ocean frontage on its 1260sq m parcel.

Singapore-based Equis Energy chief executive David Russell’s $18m purchase in 2018 had been the prior Sunshine Beach record holder.

He bought the seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 3600sq m Webb Rd beachfront estate from Melbourne IT entrepreneur Danny Wallis who’d paid $7m in 2013.

There have been reports of a $34m off-market Sunshine Beach record set earlier this year, but no settlement so far.

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart was rumoured to have purchased Webb House.

At Sunshine Beach, there have also been whispers of a $12.5m sale of an architecturally designed home earlier this month. At that price it would be just shy of double its $6.5m price of two years ago, when it had been on the market for 950 days. Set on The Esplanade, the Zarinan Gurrie design reflects a new take on Asian-inspired luxury. It was sold 16 days after being listed through Century 21 Conolly Hay Group agents Mike Hay and Rachel Sellman.

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Noosa hits heights

Noosa Heads, with compact land sizes, has seen a record $13m paid on Witta Circle through Hay. The buyer is Kerry Harmanis, the Western Australia mining investor.

It was for a 616sq m building block. The 2017-built home had been bulldozed when the vendors thought they’d extend and install a garden on the block bought next door.

The house traded at $8m in 2018 when bought by Monaco-based couple Rick and Mary Delany.

Little wonder estate agent Adrian Reed told Competing Bids the ”marketplace tension was palpable.”

“The sense of urgency to secure a blue-chip property is at a level we have never experienced,” Reed said.

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Keeping up with Jones

The other red hot coastal market, Byron Bay, is seeing an emerging trend of estate agents making the move from Sydney.

Kim Jones, the daughter of the late real estate pioneer Di Jones, made the move earlier this year to join Kollosche Prestige.

The Lake House at Ewingsdale fetched $3.25m.

She has bought a home, spending $3.25m on The Lake House, a 6500sq m Ewingsdale estate with spring-fed lake. The home, with a hammock in its magnolia-filled gardens, sold through veteran agent Janis Perkins in seven days, and above its price guidance.

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Byron migration

Will Phillips is the latest making the move, landing at the McGrath Byron Bay office. Heresigned from BresicWhitney, where he was selling 150 inner Sydney terrace houses a year.

“Will is one of the top agents in Australia, and with such strong ties to the Sydney market, which delivers Byron many of its record-breaking outcomes, he’s a great fit,” said the agency founder John McGrath.

Phillips and wife, Renata have paid $1.8m at Myocum, 20 minutes in from Byron, with 5000sq m of space for their young family. It comes with an un-renovated Queenslander-style manse relocated from Brisbane in 2017.

Phillips awaits a fresh influx of buyers as the pandemic lockdown eases later this month.

“I have seen first-hand the exodus out of metro cities and I expect a surge from Sydney.”

Despite prices having surged, Phillips says the buying sentiment is “based on affordability”. He compared a recent Bondi sale of 430sq m for $9.055m with a Byron sale on 500sq m for $3.95m.

“They can buy a freestanding home with a garden and pool, and have cash left over,” he noted.

Agency boss Nick Dunn calculated that McGrath Byron Bay had clocked up its best sales month since opening in 2013 with September’s sales totalling $37m – with three of its 12 buyers from interstate, and one family moving from Sydney’s Bronte.

Half the buyers have been local, with about 30 per cent from Sydney and 20 per cent from Melbourne.

The office’s recent sales included yet another undisclosed purchase by the Hemsworth clan. It was a 37.5 hectare property with ocean views on the Newrybar ridge line which was secured for $6.8m by Hollywood star Liam Hemsworth. The farmlet comes with a single building block.

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Piece of history

The nation’s top weekend auction sale was $6.01m in Sydney’s Annandale through Belle agent Robert Clarke.

The four-bedroom 1906 home on a 480sq m Trafalgar St dual-access holding had last sold at $41,500 in 1974 when bought by its engineer vendor from a lorry driver. Its four earlier owners, since first selling in 1909, had been a nightwatchman, butcher, wharf labourer and a retired builder.

237 Trafalgar Street, Annandale, sold for $6.01m.

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Affordable Adelaide

Adelaide had the nation’s cheapest auction result when $340,000 was paid for a three-bedroom house at O’Sullivan Beach, 40km from the CBD. The 1968 brick house last sold at $201,000 in 2007, and was recently a $285 a week rental.

Melbourne’s cheapest sale was a 1968-built apartment in South Yarra that fetched $345,000 through Edward Carlile at Woodards. The one-bedroom, second-floor Williams Rd apartment had previously traded at $180,000.

It was among what the REIV calculated as being a record 1000-plus super-Saturday online auction offering.

Nationally there were 2700 auction listings, with CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless reporting a success rate in the 80s for the third consecutive week. All capital cities were at 80 or higher.