Inside the Summer Surge Powering Australia’s Holiday Home Markets
Summer continues to be prime time for Australia’s lifestyle markets, with Byron Bay and the Gold Coast recording headline sales right through Xmas.
3 min
Summer is truly the time in the sun for Australia’s holiday destinations.
An embarrassment of riches floods into town from the capitals, many arriving with the idea of securing a holiday home.
That means real estate markets run right through Christmas and New Year, in stark contrast to capitals like Sydney and Melbourne which largely shut down until after the school holidays post–Australia Day.
Some secured their purchases, or sales, in time for the Christmas holidays.
Take The Block judge Darren Palmer and his cosmetics expert husband, Olivier Duvillard.
They bought an original beach shack near Belongil Beach in Byron Bay for $4.2 million, after selling their former Suffolk Park retreat, Pompano House, for $2.6 million.
Sydney-based Cricketer Nic Maddinson secured himself a getaway in time for Christmas, spending $1.88 million on a four-bedroom home in Coorabell.
One of Chemist Warehouse’s largest shareholders, and managing director of its QLD and NSW operations, Brett Clark, and wife Maria paid $27.5 million for Copperstone, the luxury Bangalow retreat of Oroton heir Tom Lane and wife Emma, in July.
Closer to Christmas, they expanded the already 19-hectare holding by spending $3.5 million for the vacant 24-hectare block next door.
Still in Bangalow, Susan Fashion Group founder Naomi Milgrom sold one of her Byron region holdings.
She offloaded a “Tuscan-style villa” for $4.9 million. Milgrom, who owns three adjoining properties on the dress-circle Lighthouse Road opposite Clarkes Beach in the heart of Byron, paid $3 million for the three-bedroom home on 2.4 hectares in 2017.
Fellow Melbourne-based best-selling author and podcaster Hugh Van Cuylenburg was also in a selling mood.
He sold his Bangalow retreat for $7.5 million. The founder of The Resilience Project took a hit on the 1905 original cottage, which had been architecturally upgraded into an ultra-modern home, having bought it less than two years ago for $8 million.
Closer to town, retired professional surfer Owen Wright sold one of his new development houses for $6 million just days before Christmas.
The Daniels Street home, with four bedrooms and a mineral pool, is one of four homes developed by Wright, who is keeping one of them. The buildings were completed at the start of December.
It was the same story for sellers Peter Ostick and his wife Ida Almasi, founders of Soma wellness spa, better known as the main filming location for Nicole Kidman’s Nine Perfect Strangers.
They nabbed a buyer for their five-bedroom Border Street home, which was reportedly asking around $20 million, after just six weeks on the market shortly before Christmas.
The couple sold the aforementioned Soma wellness spa this year in Ewingsdale, in the Byron hinterland, to Lorna Clarkson, founder of activewear giant Lorna Jane, for just shy of $11 million.
The Gold Coast, another one of Australia’s most popular holiday destinations, saw the same energy levels heading into the Christmas period.
An apartment in Dune Main Beach, the beachfront new development by Andrews Projects, sold for $6.8 million just before Christmas.
The full-floor, three-bedroom unit sits on the third level of the building that has a who’s who of Melbourne-based owners including former JB Hi-Fi owners Richard and Alison Bouris and a business entity with the directors tied to retail billionaire Solomon Lew.
Former AFL legend Buddy Franklin and wife Jesinta secured a buyer for Villa Casa, their Mediterranean-inspired Reedy Creek estate.
They sold the five-bedroom, 2021-built home for $10.5 million, three years after they bought it for $8.75 million, such has been the boom in the local real estate market post-COVID and in the lead up to the 2032 Brisbane Summer Olympics.
Victorian auction buyers will soon receive a piece of information that has traditionally been withheld until bidding reaches it: the vendor’s reserve price. Under new property-sale and underquoting laws, agents must publish the agreed reserve at least seven days before an auction or fixed-date sale. Most changes begin on 1 October 2026 and apply to …
Continue reading “Victoria’s New Auction Rules Will Force Reserve Prices Into the Open”
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2 minVictorian auction buyers will soon receive a piece of information that has traditionally been withheld until bidding reaches it: the vendor’s reserve price.
Under new property-sale and underquoting laws, agents must publish the agreed reserve at least seven days before an auction or fixed-date sale. Most changes begin on 1 October 2026 and apply to auctions and fixed-date sales held from 16 October.
The reserve must be presented as a single dollar amount. Advertising and the new Property Price Statement must be updated to match it, without qualifiers such as “from”, “over” or “starting at”. If the reserve has not been published seven days before the scheduled sale, the auction or fixed-date sale cannot proceed and penalties may apply.
For buyers, the immediate benefit is clearer budget discipline. A purchaser should be less likely to pay for inspections, strata reviews, contract advice and loan preparation on a property whose seller will not accept a price within the advertised range.
That does not mean the published reserve predicts the result. Competitive bidding may still carry a property far beyond it. Nor does it remove the need to value the property independently. The reserve is the seller’s minimum at that stage of the campaign, not an expert statement of market value.
The Statement of Information will be replaced by a more prominent Property Price Statement. Agents must disclose key features of the property and of the comparable sales used to support the quoted price. Where three appropriate comparables cannot be identified, one or two must be supplied if they exist.
Sold-price transparency will also increase. Agents must add the unconditional sale price to the Property Price Statement within seven days and keep that statement available publicly for at least 18 months, subject to limited exemptions including personal or family-violence concerns.
Later changes will require Section 32 vendor statements to be made available earlier, including at least 14 days before an auction or fixed-date sale from June 2027. From July 2027, agents will be prevented from taking commission from deposits released before settlement.
Vendors and agents will need to adjust campaign strategy. Setting a reserve earlier may reduce last-minute flexibility and make price expectations more visible to competing buyers. Some vendors may prefer private treaty campaigns, although those sales remain subject to broader pricing and disclosure laws.
For buyers, the practical response is not simply to bid up to the disclosed reserve. Use it as one data point alongside comparable sales, building and pest reports, owners-corporation records, planning constraints and finance approval. Decide on a maximum before the auction and do not confuse the seller’s minimum with your own valuation.
Key dates
– 1 October 2026: Most new rules commence
– 9 October 2026: First reserve disclosures may be required for sales on 16 October
– 16 October 2026: New reserve rules apply to auctions/fixed-date sales from this date
– 1 June 2027: Earlier Section 32 availability begins
– 1 July 2027: Restrictions on commission from released deposits begin
– 1 December 2027: Broader sold-price reporting to Consumer Affairs begins
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