City dwellers move into their beach houses to wait out coronavirus outbreak

Holiday towns around the country are seeing a string of beach house owners move out of major cities and into their second homes to wait out the coronavirus outbreak.

Agents have also been fielding requests from those who wish to take a six or 12-month lease on beach houses emptied of their regular short-stay tenants following a ban on non-essential domestic travel – or even buy them.

With more Australians working from home, agents suspect some are using their extra free time to browse property listings and dream about buying their own place outside the cities, with continued inquiry for coastal lifestyle properties.

But the moves come even as authorities warn Australians to stay at home as much as possible to combat the spread of the virus and infectious disease experts have warned that it isn’t necessarily safer to live in the country and temporary tree-changers can still be exposed.

In Noosa, Tom Offermann, principal of the eponymous agency, has seen demand from residents of cooler climes.

“A lot of absentee owners have moved into their homes to escape the bigger cities and to spend their time in their holiday homes,” Mr Offermann told Domain.

“I have had some requests from Melbourne-based clients who anticipate that this lockdown will continue throughout their southern winter and they are looking for properties that they can rent for six to 12 months.

“But the accommodation is quite tight in Noosa for those types of properties and those types of rentals.”

Some owners who were heavily reliant on holiday letting income are now bringing their properties onto the market as travel restrictions bite, he said, while other sellers had withdrawn their properties from sale.

“The important thing for sellers is, if they do wish to sell in this market, they need to be quite sensible about their price because buyers will be a little more skittish and will be looking for better value during riskier times,” he said.

Further south, Portsea on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula was also seeing some shift away from the city, Kay & Burton Portsea director Liz Jensen said.

“Our rental department are run off their feet at the moment because people don’t want to sell, but they are leasing their houses for a six-month period for people who want to get out of the city,” Ms Jensen said.

“[People are thinking,] ‘We’ll isolate ourselves here, away from the congestion if we can.’”

She cited one example of a property that sold early February and was due to settle at the end of April.

The settlement was brought forward because the new owners wanted to get out of the city and isolate on the peninsula, and were also worried about the availability of removalists.

In a rare piece of good news, the owners brought settlement forward, had the house cleaned, and even let the buyers arrive a couple of days before finalising the paperwork, she said.

Byron Bay is drawing interest despite mayor Simon Richardson calling for a reciprocal border closure to stop Queenslanders visiting the northern NSW town, whose residents cannot themselves travel to the Sunshine State.

First National Byron sales manager Tara Torkkola said city dwellers still wanted to move to Byron Bay, especially potential home buyers who had sold in Sydney or Melbourne.

“We speak to buyers from our cities, they’re feeling very strongly and want to move to our part of the world to retreat,” Ms Torkkola said.

“They’ve got cash, they’re not going to put it in shares, and everyone’s able to work remotely.”

Although some buyers are “a bit spooked”, she has seen online views of her properties rise as workers sent home are sitting online looking at real estate listings.

As for sellers, she has listed the contemporary four-bedroom home at 29 Paterson Street with price hopes of $2.95 million to $3.245 million. The owners are happy to give a sales campaign a try for six weeks, and retain the property if it doesn’t work out, she says.

SOLD - $3,067,500

29 Paterson Street, Byron Bay NSW 2481

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On the NSW Central Coast, McGrath Terrigal’s Trevor Hamilton has noticed a handful of second-home owners moving into their holiday houses.

“They just want to get away,” he said.

“They want to do it now, before we go into complete lockdown.”

He cited one family moving four members from a small unit in the city to a holiday home in a spot with more space and fewer crowds.

Holiday rental cancellations are prompting owners to rethink their strategies, and perhaps sell earlier than planned, as beach towns scramble to stop visitors arriving for the Easter holidays.

Take, for example, a riverfront home in Ocean Grove south-west of Melbourne priced at $1.9 million listed by Bellarine Property’s Toby Lee.

SOLD - $1,750,000

5 Parker Street, Ocean Grove VIC 3226

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“This particular property I’ve got on the market is vacant and all the holiday rentals have been cancelled. For how long, we’re not quite sure,” Mr Lee said.

“We were coming to the market, we had the marketing already produced, so it was a matter of pushing the get set and go button.

“The vendor was quite happy to put the property onto the market … we’ve got free rein and access to conduct private inspections for the time being.”

He was still seeing keen buyers in the market, and had four private inspections scheduled the afternoon he spoke to Domain with buyers who have sold and needed to move.