Australia’s luxury property pecking order has been turned on its head, with Queensland’s coastal markets overtaking Sydney and Perth closing in on Melbourne — and it’s being driven by a new type of wealthy buyer.
A dramatic shake-up of the nation’s top-end housing market is underway, with the Sunshine State’s coastal hotspots — and even Perth — storming up the ranks and closing in on the traditional heavyweights, according to Ray White’s Luxury Outlook 2026.
RELATED: Inside celebrity designer Anna Spiro’s wildly colourful home
Surprise Aussie town that’s suddenly a global luxury hotspot
Aerial image of Kings beach, Caloundra, Queensland. Photo: iStock.
Australia’s luxury house price threshold now sits at $2.75m — up a staggering 80 per cent in a decade — but the real shock is how quickly the old hierarchy has collapsed.
Melbourne, once comfortably ahead, is now barely clinging on, with its luxury price threshold sitting at $2.58m — just ahead of Brisbane at $2.49m and Perth at $2.48m.
Luxury house prices on the Gold Coast have surged 152 per cent over the past decade, while the Sunshine Coast has rocketed 159 per cent and Brisbane 133 per cent.
Aerial view of the stunning Gold Coast skyline on a sunny day, Queensland, Australia. Photo – iStock.
Melbourne, by comparison, has crawled just 42 per cent higher.
The unit market tells an even more brutal story.
The Sunshine Coast now boasts the most expensive luxury apartments in the country at a median of $2.27m — overtaking Sydney’s $2.23m — with the Gold Coast close behind at $2.13m.
Brisbane has also edged past Melbourne.
Luxury house price growth by major city. Image: Ray White.
This luxury unit at 2/10 Natasha Ave, Noosa Heads, is for sale.
Ray White economist Atom Go Tian said it wasn’t a cyclical story, but a fundamental shift.
“The luxury market is no longer concentrated,” Mr Go Tian said. “It is spreading into markets that would have been afterthoughts a decade ago.”
Mr Go Tian said today’s top-end buyers were increasingly self-made — tech founders, entrepreneurs and private equity players who had built fortunes in industries that barely existed 20 years ago.
MORE: Olympic city joins global luxury elite as billionaire ranks explode
He said they were chasing lifestyle over old-school prestige — coastal living, space, and a pace of life Sydney and Melbourne could not match.
“What the data captures is partly a price story and partly a values story,” he said. “When a buyer leaves a $45m Bellevue Hill house for a $26m Noosa property, they are not trading down. They are making a statement about what luxury means to them, and increasingly, it means time, ease, and the particular quality of life that comes from a home that fits how you actually want to live.”
Luxury unit price growth by major city. Image: Ray White.
Ray White economist Atom Go Tian.
But the report found Sydney is still the country’s most expensive market, with the top five per cent of houses trading above $4.79m.
Adelaide has also closed ground rapidly, reaching $2.08m after 123 per cent growth, now matching Canberra at the same level.
Darwin is the outlier. Its luxury unit price is virtually unchanged over 10 years — $803,000 in 2016, and $810,000 in 2026.
This property at 76 Windermere Rd, Hamilton, has just hit the market with Damon Warat of Ray White Ascot.
Ray White Group maanging director Dan White said Queensland’s coastal markets had outpaced Sydney in both percentage growth and, in the case of units, absolute price.
“Brisbane and Perth now sit within $100,000 of Melbourne’s luxury threshold, a gap that was once measured in the hundreds of thousands,” Mr White said.
“The luxury market is no longer concentrated; it is spreading and deepening in markets that would have been afterthoughts a decade ago.”
Ray White measured luxury through the 95th percentile of property prices, which is the point at which only five per cent of homes in a given market trade higher.
English (US) · 