Brisbane and the Gold Coast have enjoyed an extraordinary year for real estate sales in the past 12 months, with even Sydney unable to match their property booms.
New data from Corelogic on property sales by council region showed that Brisbane had the highest value of sales in the year to August, reaching $16.8 billion, while the Gold Coast also enjoyed a bumper year as it recorded $10.7 billion of sales, News.com.au reports.
These figures came despite Brisbane seeing an 11.2 per cent drop in sales compared with 2015, from 31,443 to 26,428. The Gold Coast saw a smaller drop of 2.2 per cent from 20,616 to 19,224.
CoreLogic researcher Cameron Kusher observed: "This suggests that the increase in value has been more driven by an increase in values of properties rather than an increase in turnover."
Queensland's success was not just confined to two locations, with the Sunshine Coast coming in fifth at $4.39 billion and Moreton Bay sixth at $4.36 billion. In between them, Boroondara in Victoria was third with $4.96 billion of sales and Sydney came third at $4.93 billion.
The trend towards lower volumes was seen everywhere apart from the Queensland district of Issac, with even Brisbane's total down from $18.9 billion. That, however, meant the value per property was up, whereas the average value was static on the Gold Coast.
Nonetheless, the state clearly did better than many parts of the country, with the Corelogic figures tallying with other data showing the property market at its weakest in areas hit by the downturn in mining.
The largest actual rise in value by proportion was Circular Head in Tasmania, with the value of homes soaring by 91.6 per cent despite the tally of transactions dipping from 118 to 100.
Queensland's success comes just as the state government prepares to launch a three-year, $90 million tourism drive that could further boost property investment.