TENNIS COURTS LOB HIGH RETURNS FOR PRIME MARKET
Increasingly rare and sought out, residential courts drive a 230% sales surge.
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Driven by shifting lifestyle changes brought about by COVID-19 and furthered by rising market confidence, new research has outed a dramatic spike in the sale of Australian super-prime properties holding tennis courts.
Knight Frank’s inaugural Australian Residential Tennis Court Premium report has found sales of super-prime property with courts spiked during 2020 – $682.8m transacted across 38 sales, up 230% on 2019’s 14 sales.
Properties with tennis courts commanded a 22% higher sale price than those without, the average price rising by 1.6% to $18 million in 2020. The research also found nearly a quarter (23%) of all super-prime residential 2020 sales were properties with courts.
“In 2020, Sydney saw $436.6 million of tennis court-featured super-prime sales across 22 transactions, although this total volume fell short by 3 per cent of surpassing its highest volume reached in 2018,” said Knight Frank’s Head of Residential Research Michelle Ciesielski.
Beyond volume, a cultural shift driven by the pandemic is said to have heightened purchaser desires.
“Australians transformed the way they lived in 2020 due to COVID-19, with the role of the home expanding to become a place of work, education and vacation due to periodic lockdowns during the pandemic,” added Knight Frank’s National Head of Residential, Shaye Harris.
Based on sales figures since 2011, the top three performing suburbs for super-prime properties with tennis courts were Melbourne’s Toorak (39 sales), Sydney’s Bellevue Hill (23 sales) and Vaucluse and Mosman, which were equal third with 16 sales.
Last June Tennis Australia reported a significant rise in interest in the sport – online booking data across 173 venues revealing that the number of court bookings more than doubled from 10,912 in May 2019 to 22,569 in May 2020.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
Ray White’s chief economist outlines her predictions for housing market trends in 2024
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Ray White’s chief economist, Nerida Conisbee says property price growth will continue next year and mortgage holders will need to “survive until 2025” amid expectations of higher interest rates for longer.
Ms Conisbee said strong population growth and a housing supply shortage combatted the impact of rising interest rates in 2023, leading to unusually strong price growth during a rate hiking cycle. The latest CoreLogic data shows home values have increased by more than 10 percent in the year to date in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Among the regional markets, price growth has been strongest in regional South Australia with 8.6 percent growth and regional Queensland at 6.9 percent growth.
“As interest rates head close to peak, it is expected that price growth will continue. At this point, housing supply remains extremely low and many people that would be new home buyers are being pushed into the established market,” Ms Conisbee said. “Big jumps in rents are pushing more first home buyers into the market and population growth is continuing to be strong.”
Ms Conisbee said interest rates will be higher for longer due to sticky inflation. “… we are unlikely to see a rate cut until late 2024 or early 2025. This means mortgage holders need to survive until 2025, paying far more on their home loans than they did two years ago.”
Buyers in coastal areas currently have a window of opportunity to take advantage of softer prices, Ms Conisbee said. “Look out for beach house bargains over summer but you need to move quick. In many beachside holiday destinations, we saw a sharp rise in properties for sale and a corresponding fall in prices. This was driven by many pandemic driven holiday home purchases coming back on to the market.”
3 key housing market trends for 2024
Here are three of Ms Conisbee’s predictions for the key housing market trends of 2024.
Luxury apartment market to soar
Ms Conisbee said the types of apartments being built have changed dramatically amid more people choosing to live in apartments longer-term and Australia’s ageing population downsizing. “Demand is increasing for much larger, higher quality, more expensive developments. This has resulted in the most expensive apartments in Australia seeing price increases more than double those of an average priced apartment. This year, fewer apartments being built, growing population and a desire to live in some of Australia’s most sought-after inner urban areas will lead to a boom in luxury apartment demand.”
Homes to become even greener
The rising costs of energy and the health impacts of heat are two new factors driving interest in green homes, Ms Conisbee said. “Having a greener home utilising solar and batteries makes it cheaper to run air conditioning, heaters and pool pumps. We are heading into a particularly hot summer and having homes that are difficult to cool down makes them far more dangerous for the elderly and very young.”
More people living alone
For some time now, long-term social changes such as delayed marriage and an ageing population have led to more people living alone. However, Ms Conisbee points out that the pandemic also showed that many people prefer to live alone for lifestyle reasons. “Shorter term, the pandemic has shown that given the chance, many people prefer to live alone with a record increase in single-person households during the time. This trend may influence housing preferences, with a potential rise in demand for smaller dwellings and properties catering to individuals rather than traditional family units.”
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
