Many more on millionaires' row

17 July 2004

Adelaide has recorded more than 120 $1 million-plus house sales in the past year.

This includes five properties which each sold for more than $3 million.

North Adelaide and Unley Park are Adelaide's top million-dollar suburbs, with nine sales between July 1, 2003 and July 10 this year.

The most expensive home was at Robe Terrace, Medindie, which sold for $3.5 million in February.

Other expensive sales included a $3.2 million house in West Lakes which was bought by tennis star Lleyton Hewitt in September and a two-storey Glenelg mansion sold by Liberal backbencher Duncan McFetridge for $3.45 million in December.

Real Estate Institute of South Australia president Robin Turner said the results were "nothing short of remarkable". "The figures equate to two-to-three $1 million-plus sales a week," he said.

"Going back five or more years ago, we would have been lucky to achieve 10 in a whole year.

"Buyers want good quality homes and are prepared to pay for it."

Also surprising was that the houses selling for more than $1 million were not only in areas typically regarded as the "million-dollar suburbs".

A five-room conventional 1960 home on a 765sq m block sold at Elizabeth East for $1.3 million, while a 1963 five-room conventional home on a block of 611sq m at Campbelltown sold for $2.4 million.

Mr Turner said often homes were on huge blocks of land and were bought by developers for subdivision.

"The land could be big enough and a developer could chop it up into 20 blocks," he said.

"It's not necessarily that it is a million-dollar house but it's the potential that it has."

Mr Turner attributed the high number of expensive sales to continued low interest rates and a new confidence in the SA housing market.

"I don't think there will be a cap on what people will pay in the future," he said.

"While I don't think we are experiencing a burgeoning luxury market, I think what we are seeing is a catch-up situation.

"People are recognising that properties have been undervalued for some time.

"There is also a clear indication of a more mature market in a world-class city that Adelaide is."

Bernard H Booth selling agent Richard Opie has sold several million-dollar-plus homes in the past year at Leabrook, Crafers, the city and at Unley Park.

"The Adelaide market is coming from a very conservative base. Good quality family homes in the right locations are still keenly sought after," he said.

"The issue that is confronting the market at the moment is a lack or availability of these homes."

Mr Opie said $5 million sales would not be out of reach in Adelaide during the next few years.

"Properties that have sold for around $3 million have been refurbished and would now be in this sort of price range," he said.

"Adelaide is still comparatively cheap compared with interstate and overseas countries."

Reproduced from The Advertiser newspaper.