THE holiday home property wave has broken but, for the time being at least, living on millionaires' row means there won't be a wipeout. In those markets, multi-million-dollar houses and apartments are selling strongly while other agents complain of their worst lead up to Christmas in a decade.
On the Gold Coast, PRDnationwide agent Doug Green sold three luxury homes for more than $13 million in less than three weeks in the lead up to Christmas.
One of those was the Surfers Paradise riverfront residence of the late Brian and Kathy Ray, who died last year in an aircraft accident in the Victorian snowfields.
The Cannes Avenue house, with a 27m deep-water frontage and its 1300sqm of land zoned for a high-rise development, sold for $4.925 million.
The buyer was Consolidated Properties developer Mike Dodd, who in the same week sold his beachfront apartment in the Platinum development at Surfers Paradise for $3.1 million.
In another deal, Mr Green sold an Admiralty Drive, Paradise Waters, home on behalf of the receivers of Mango Breeze, associated with Gold Coast businessman Rob Dale, for $5.7 million. Mr Dale purchased the property in 2004 for $4.4 million.
The home was bought by Tony Burnett, managing director of Oz Hotels, as a Gold Coast base for his family.
Spread over four-levels, it has five bedrooms, a study, media room, large gymnasium, sauna and basement parking for seven cars.
Mr Green said Gold Coast prime property was so tightly held that there was now a shortage of top-end houses for sale.
"This is one of the major factors driving the value of prestige property," he said.
"The premier sites are finite, and we are seeing a land grab by purchasers to secure property once it is placed on the market."
Mr Green said each of the three properties had been on the market for less than two weeks.
He believes prime riverfront property will achieve extraordinary gains during the next three years.
"Five years ago, beachfront and main river property were achieving similar prices, however, beachfront property has increased in value by about 200 per cent in that time.
"It's inevitable the price gap between the two will close," he said.
NSW markets were much more subdued, although perennial hot spot Byron Bay, where the entry price is around $400,000, picked up after Christmas.
First National director James Young said that despite a "plateauing" of prices, his agency had managed to sell seven properties in a week.
He said the slower market had produced a new wave of buyers, typically holidaymakers who had been coming to Byron for at least 10 years and who knew the market well enough to sense that now was a good time to buy.
Melbourne-based property researcher Alan Tan, of Tan & Co, believes the value of coastal investment property in the middle and lower end of the market will come under further pressure.
Macquarie Bank head of property research Rod Cornish said an overhang in the investment market had produced a situation where unless properties were "very, very special" they were difficult to sell.
At Merimbula, a popular holiday destination on the NSW far south coast, veteran local agent Ted McKeown, said high property prices were the reason investors had left the market.
"Prior to 2002, investors could pay $140,000 and get rent of $240 a week. Now they pay $280,000-$300,000 and get the same rent," he said.
Along the Victorian coast, agents had one of their quietest Christmas periods in years, apart from the top end of the market.
Well-heeled holiday home buyers, according to Kay & Burton Portsea manager Liz Jensen, mostly snapped up $1 million-$2 million properties.
The sun also shone on Lorne and Airey's Inlet, two of the Great Ocean Road's most popular upmarket holiday destinations.
Lorne Real Estate chief Michael Troon said after a worrying November and December, the market came good after early January's famous Pier to Pub swim, an event this year watched by 25,000 spectators.
"It was like turning on a switch," he said.
"We've since sold millions of dollars of property in Lorne and Airey's inlet and the rural hinterland."
Sales at Victor Harbour, South Australia's most popular resort town, were subdued after prices peaked last year, but across the Nullabor at Margaret River it was a different story, with agents run off their feet by prospective buyers.
Acton real estate agency principal Terry O'Leary said it had been "mayhem" for staff barely able to keep up with inquiries from visitors from around the world.
Mr O'Leary said land sales had ranged from a fully serviced 600sqm town block for only $135,000 to $485,000 for a 5000sqm allotment with limited ocean views.
He said there was strong investor demand for houses under $400,000 and a lot of interest in villa homes.
Mr O'Leary is selling the $1.36million home of golfer Wayne Smith, who after five years of living and working in Margaret River is relocating to Perth.
The five-bedroom cedar weatherboard country home is situated on 3ha of land about seven kilometres from the town.
The property includes a self-contained visitor's cottage.
Elsewhere in the west, coastal agents said they had experienced a quieter than expected holiday period, with sales and inquiry rates well down on last year.
However, an exception was Rockingham, the once unfashionable south coast town less than an hour's drive from Perth where houses prices have broken the million-dollar barrier, with a run of sales up to $1.475 million.
While other beach house sales flounder, luxury home markets in locations such as the Gold Coast, Portsea and Margaret River have powered into 2006.
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