Popular suburbs of 2019: Holiday destinations record some of the highest numbers of property sales in Australia

Some of the country’s most popular suburbs for property sales this year have been buoyed by demand from retirees and buyers hoping to list on Airbnb, experts say. 

Queensland’s Surfers Paradise recorded the most sales of any suburb in the country, on Domain data, with 1308 reported sales in the calendar year to November 2019.

It dwarfed the most popular suburb in Victoria, the Melbourne CBD, at 1095 sales. Meanwhile, Port Macquarie was the most popular locale in New South Wales with 1045 homes selling this year. 

About 30 to 50 per cent of buyers in Surfers Paradise enquired about turning properties into Airbnbs, Tolemy Stevens from Harcourts Coastal said.  

“Airbnb is certainly becoming more of a prevalent conversation these days with potential investors,” Mr Stevens said. “Five or 10 years ago you’d never hear about it.”

He said most buyers in Surfers Paradise were either retirees buying luxury holiday homes or investors looking to rent out their properties, either as holiday accommodation or residential housing. 

“Owner-occupiers would represent only about 20 to 25 per cent of our transactions,” Mr Stevens said.

Domain economist Trent Wiltshire said the federal election and falling house prices saw the number of sales across the country dwindle in the first half of the year, but they had picked up in recent months.

“In the three months to September, sales have jumped 17 per cent compared with the three months to the end of April this year,” Mr Wiltshire said.  

He said the rebound in sale numbers had been most pronounced in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Low interest rates and the expectation of lower rates to come, have made the market bounce back.”

Real Estate Institute of Victoria president Leah Calnan said Melbourne CBD was popular for Airbnbs – as most large cities were – but the CBD had also become a hotspot for retirees. 

“We’re still seeing people downsize and move out of their larger family homes and move into the CBD and surrounding suburbs,” Ms Calnan said. “Particularly that 50-plus age bracket – they don’t want to be mowing lawns on the weekend and having large gardens because they’ve done all that.” 

Retirees also made up a large portion of buyers in Port Macquarie, agent David Geary from McGrath said.

“They can cash in in Sydney and buy something here a lot cheaper and still have a bit of money in the bank,” Mr Geary said.

He said buyers in that part of the mid-north coast were increasingly looking for holiday homes, either for themselves or to rent out.

“A lot of people are looking for Airbnb options in Port Macquarie,” Mr Geary said. “I’ve had a fair few enquiries from people lately, just in the past couple of months.”

Adelaide CBD saw the most sales in South Australia (867), while Darwin City was most popular in the Northern Territory (137) and the central Canberra suburb of Kingston topped the sales charts in the ACT with 250 sales.

Perth fringe suburb Baldivis, just inland from Rockingham, was the most popular in WA (453), while in Tasmania, Devonport on the north coast had the highest number of sales (354). 

Mr Wiltshire said it often either the CBD, a new development area or a regional centre experiencing growth, would see the most sales in any given state each year. He said bigger suburbs were also likely to have more sales.

“Port Macquarie is quite a large suburb, more like a town, hence the large number of sales, whereas Devonport is a good example of a regional area seeing strong sales numbers,” he said.