Luxury Co-Ownership: How Affluent Aussies Are Sharing High-End Holiday Homes
An intriguing new holiday home concept is emerging for high net worth Australians.
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Affluent Aussies with a savvy financial mindset have been sharing the expense of their luxury lifestyles for years through yacht and private jet syndicates, and now the idea has stretched to high-end holiday homes.
A concept known as Second Home has reached the millionaire playground of Queenstown, New Zealand and the idea is tipped to soon take flight across the ditch.
Longtime co-ownership pioneers John and Sharon Russell started selling shares in luxury boats in Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast in 1999 and have now entered the holiday home space with Second Home.
Investors can purchase shares in a fully-managed vacation property, but unlike a timeshare, each owner’s name is on the title. As a result, the shares remain a sellable and appreciating asset.
“This is very similar to buying into a boat syndicate where you own a share and can use it as if it’s yours, without the full cost and responsibility of owning the boat outright,” Mr Russell said.
“With Second Home, you are purchasing the bricks and mortar of a New Zealand holiday home valued at over A$2.5 million – with your name on the title, and access to it and all the wonderful activities in and around Queenstown for six weeks each and every year.”
Currently under construction in the Kiwi ski town, there is a three bedroom apartment in the Jacks Point development on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, pictured. Eight shares of the architecturally designed, fully furnished apartment are available, from A$325,000 and include six weeks usage of throughout each year.
Mr Russell said the concept is a far cry from the better known short term rental schemes.
“This is not a hotel or Airbnb with tourists coming and going – the only people who stay in the home are the owners and their guests, who we encourage to get to know each other,” he explained.
“Second Home is ideal for people who aspire to own a holiday home and return with family and friends to enjoy the same region each year, but don’t want to invest so much capital in owning an apartment outright, only for it to be locked up for months on end.”
Additionally, he said the ongoing costs of owning a holiday home are also shared among owners.
“In the case of Jacks Point, each investor’s share of expenses is about $7000 annually, which covers body corporate and management fees, insurances and maintenance,” he added.
“Overall, that’s still significantly cheaper than booking accommodation each time they’d like to holiday in New Zealand.”
Property prices in Queenstown have increased by approximately 7 per cent a year over the past decade, with property experts tipping the median will continue to rise.
While Queenstown property prices have come off their post-pandemic high, the longterm snapshot of the popular holiday destination show that it has experienced incredible growth.
Data from realestate.co.nz showed from the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2024, average asking prices in Central Otago-Queenstown Lakes rose 106.6 per cent.
After hitting a peak in November 2022, house prices fell 5.27 per cent before bottoming out in December 2022. The average price of a Queenstown property in December 2024, according to CoreLogic NZ, was A$1.65m with values up 2.17 per cent over the three months prior.
“There can be some very lucrative capital gains to be made by buying into a shared holiday home,” Mr Russell said.
Second Home’s other NZ location is a six-bedroom, French-style chateau in the Carrick Winery in Central Otago. It comes with a Land Rover Defender 130 and six e-bikes. There are 13 shares available, valued at A$445,000 each, with annual expenses of around A$8,600.
The Russells also have one $40,000 share remaining of thirteen in a four-bedroom villa near Florence, Italy, where shareholders can enjoy an authentic Italian rural lifestyle for one month every year.
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Australia’s housing affordability crisis is being fuelled by chronic undersupply, planning delays and rising development costs, as politicians continue to focus on the wrong solutions.
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Australia’s housing crisis will not be solved by first-home buyer incentives or tax changes alone, with leading property figures warning governments must tackle supply constraints if affordability is to improve.
Speaking at the Kanebridge Quarterly Property Leadership Summit in Sydney last week, expert project marketing specialist Sam Elbanna, property investor and fund manager Paul Miron and property consultant Karla McNeice said that a lack of housing supply remained the central issue facing the market.
Elbanna, Director of CPM Realty with more than 30 years’ experience in project sales, argued that successive governments had focused too heavily on stimulating demand rather than addressing the barriers preventing new housing from being delivered.
“The misconception is that politicians think the way to solve the housing crisis is to drive demand,” he said.
“The reality is that’s not the way. This is a supply-side problem, and it needs to be solved on the supply side.”
Drawing on his experience in project sales, Elbanna said policies designed to help first-home buyers often had unintended consequences, pointing to previous grants that ultimately flowed through to higher property prices.
Instead, he said developers were facing increasing red tape, approval delays and rising costs, which were discouraging new housing supply.
“In the absence of stock, demand exceeds supply,” he said.
Miron, a Co-Founder and Fund Manager of Msquared Capital, said the housing debate had become overly focused on tax policy while overlooking broader structural issues.
He argued that affordability challenges stemmed from a combination of factors, including planning constraints, supply shortages, migration levels and interest rates.
“No-one can be 100 per cent certain on the real reason for property prices is going up,” he said.
“The reason why property prices are higher is a combination of interest rates, lack of supply, migration, vacancy rates and maybe taxes play a role.”
Miron was critical of recent federal housing policy changes, warning they could reduce the number of new homes being built and further constrain supply that was even highlighted in the budget.
He also highlighted the importance of the property sector to the broader economy, noting that residential real estate and related industries employed more than one million Australians.
McNeice, who advises developers on sales strategy and market intelligence, said understanding buyers had become increasingly important as affordability pressures intensified.
While affordability remained a major consideration, she said today’s buyers were focused on value rather than simply price.
“People are looking for value for money,” she said.
She said buyers were increasingly evaluating factors such as transport connections, walkability, nearby amenities and flexible living spaces that could accommodate changing family needs.
“What infrastructure is going on? Can I walk to the shops? Can I meet people at the local cafe?” she said.
The panel also discussed the mounting pressures facing developers, with Elbanna arguing that many projects become financially unviable from the moment a site is purchased.
“The viability of a development happens at the moment the site is bought,” he said.
He said rising construction costs, higher interest rates and overly optimistic feasibility assumptions had left some developers exposed as market conditions changed.
While acknowledging the growing number of smaller and first-time developers entering the market, Elbanna said property development required expertise across finance, construction, marketing and legal disciplines.
“It is actually a business that requires a level of expertise,” he said.
Looking ahead, the panel agreed opportunities remained in the market despite current challenges.
Miron said property should continue to be viewed as a long-term investment and cautioned against trying to time short-term market movements.
McNeice said success would increasingly depend on identifying projects that genuinely met changing buyer expectations.
Elbanna said affordable housing remained achievable, but developers needed to deliver more than just homes.
“We can provide affordable housing in this country,” he said.
“But we’ve got to wrap that affordable housing with the things that people want.”
As Australia’s housing affordability debate intensifies, the panellists agreed on one point: without a meaningful increase in housing supply, demand-side measures alone are unlikely to solve the nation’s property challenges.
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