It looks like Noosa has some competition in the demolition derby stakes.
House knockdowns have been turning heads in the north of our region for decades.
From Noosa Waters to Noosa Heads, Noosaville and Tewantin, the properties are bought mainly for their land value, to make way for bigger, brighter, better designs and taking greater advantage of million-dollar views and locations, as well as robust property markets.
But high-profile knockdowns and rebuilds have been documented further afield in recent years. For example, 15 Foote Ridge at Buderim was demolished and rebuilt into a grand, European-inspired residence to capitalise on the unspoilt location and views from the property on the easterly escarpment.
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But data analysis for the last financial year shows a new, possibly unexpected contender delivering a knockout blow to demolition numbers.
Ray White group data analyst William Clark told The Real Estate Conversation that Parreara-Warana in the Kawana Waters area had 36 knockdowns – the greatest number in Queensland for that period.
It fought off Greater Brisbane suburbs of Goodna, and Rocklea and Acacia Ridge, as well as Palm Beach on the Gold Coast, with 35 each, to hold the title for the most knockdowns in the state.
Other top spots for demolitions on the Coast reportedly were: Buddina-Minyama (29), Maroochydore-Kuluin (28), Moffat Beach-Battery Hill (27), Mooloolaba-Alexandra Headland (21), Buderim North (18), Coolum Beach, Noosaville and Sunshine Beach (17) and Marcoola-Mudjimba (16).
After COVID lockdowns eased across the East Coast, knockdowns on the Sunshine Coast seemed to gain momentum.
Motorists only had to drive down Oceanic Drive (from about Koorin Drive to Thunderbird Drive) at any given time to see more than a dozen properties covered by barriers and scaffolding, on both sides of the road, where original or relatively new family homes were being torn down to make way for beachside dream houses.
The changing landscape of designs has been a topic of many a footpath conversation from Buddina Beach to Currimundi.
Sunshine Coast News reported this month that one of the latest knockdown-rebuilds at No.227 Oceanic Drive was sold for $5.05m: the highest sale price recorded for a coastline property along the Kawana stretch from Wurtulla to Buddina.
The eye-catching, four-bedroom Bokarina home was purchased for $2.2m by Dan Briscoe and Brent Ambrosini in 2022.
The old home was demolished and the lavish new home was created by MRA Designs and Briscoe Homes, before it was sold to a couple from near Maleny.
Mr Clark told The Real Estate Conversation that the top localities for knockdowns remained Greater Melbourne (the highest 96 in Point Nepean) and Greater Sydney, followed by regional NSW and regional Victoria.
“Knockdowns represent a strong step forward in the number of dwellings available, as house lots getting rezoned to apartments and higher-density residential often motivates a lot of development,” he said.
“It is interesting to see large levels of redevelopment occurring in the regions, when normally you’d expect to see high-development suburbs restricted to outer-city suburbs.”
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He said large numbers of knockdowns and redevelopments in neighbourhoods did not necessarily mean those suburbs were ‘gentrifying’ and seeing a new community moving in.
“Large numbers of knockdowns in suburbs does not mean the suburb itself is becoming unaffordable or changing in any meaningful way,” he said.
“More often than not, gentrification is slower and more sustainable than a sudden wave of knockdowns, so whether you are for it or against it, you will see it happening in a time frame you can respond to.”
Coast building industry sources report that knocking down an average home and taking away the materials today costs about $35,000 to $40,000. But that price increases if the home contains asbestos, and also is dependent upon other factors including the amount of concrete in the footings and dumping charges.
SUBURB PROFILES
The coastal Warana area, which only welcomed its first residents in the late 1970s/early 1980s, had a median price for houses of $1,265,000 from October 2022 to September 2023 (down 2.7 per cent in the past 12 months), based on 55 sales, realestate.com.au reports.
Pre-COVID, April 2019 to March 2020, that figure was $760,000, based on 63 sales.
Parrearra (Kawana Island) is bounded to the west by the Mooloolah River, to the north by Nicklin Way, to the north-east by the Parrearra Canal, and to the south-east and south by the Wyuna Canal. It was redesignated and bounded as a suburb in 1989.
The median house price for Parrearra was $1,170,000 from October 2022 to September 2023 (down 3.9 per cent in the past 12 months), based on 52 sales. Pre-COVID, April 2019 to March 2020, that figure was $752,500, based on 90 sales.
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