Canberra May 2018

The month in review: Canberra

By Herron Todd White
May 2018

The price point for prestige property in the ACT is between $1.5 million and $3.5 million. Sales over the $3.5 million mark are generally for high quality properties on large land parcels in Canberra’s prestige suburbs.

These sales could be considered ultra-prestige.

Some examples of Ultra-Prestige include:

• An architecturally designed 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom Forrest property in July 2017 for $4.22 million
• The sale of an architecturally designed 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom Deakin property in November 2017 for $5.75 million
• The sale of a 4,900 square metre property on Tennyson Street, Forrest which has been purchased for $6 million to be knocked down for a new dwelling construction.
• Canberra’s record sale of an 11,000 square metre red hill allotment including a 5 bedroom, 7 bathroom house for $7,300,000 in 2010.

The above sales show that buyers are active, even at the above $5 million mark. These properties are usually owned and purchased by prominent members of Canberra’s business community or occasionally by other purchasers such as embassies.

Canberra’s prestige suburbs mainly consist of the inner city suburbs where land values are high and allotment sizes are larger than in other areas. Prestige property is most prominent in Canberra’s inner south, with the suburbs of Yarralumla, Deakin, Forrest, Red Hill, Griffith and O’Malley standing out as being the main prestige areas. Other suburbs such as Turner, Campbell and Reid in Canberra’s inner north also fall into the same prestige category given price points for the area.

Prestige sales within the Canberra unit market are between $1 million and $2 million. The features of prestige units usually include large living areas, central locations and impressive aspect. Canberra does not have an ultra-prestige unit market in the same way that other cities around Australia do, as most sales are sub $2 million.

An example of one of these prestige sales is a penthouse unit in the Kingston Foreshore precinct. The 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 270 square metre unit with waterfront views was sold in November 2016 for $1.98 million. Another example is the sale of a prestige unit in the Nishi complex in the CBD. The 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom unit with 140 square metres of living area and views across Canberra was sold in January 2018 for a $1.18 million.