Sydney’s super-prime residential property market is proving buoyant, with the city coming in fourth on the latest Knight Frank rankings for that market sector.
According to the Global Super-Prime Intelligence Q4 report, the NSW capital city recorded 42 sales in the super-prime market in the final three months of 2023.
The super-prime market comprises residential sales above US$10 million and the Knight Frank rankings take into account 12 markets across the globe.
Dubai took out top spot on the list, with 108 sales, followed by London (52) and New York (52)
Sydney’s 42 sales were double the 21 transactions recorded in the September quarter of 2023 and almost twice the number of sales recorded a year prior.
Knight Frank Partner Erin van Tuil said the super-prime real estate market is continuing to prove popular and grow in momentum in Australia due to a combination of strengthening buyer sentiment, a shift in market outlook and the ever-present attractiveness of Australia as a safe haven to live and invest.
“Wealth creation in Australia is also supporting the market – with a notable rise in cash transactions, which now represent over half of all prime property sales in Sydney,” she said.
Knight Frank’s recently-released The Wealth Report 2024 found the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) – those with a net worth of US$30 million or more – in Australia rose by 2.9 per cent from 2022 to 2023 to reach 15,347 people and is expected to rise a further 27 per cent by 2028.
In 2023, Sydney had a total of 113 super-prime residential sales, up from 108 in 2022, putting it in sixth place out of the 12 cities analysed globally.
The total value of super-prime residential sales in Sydney over 2023 was $US1.932 billion, while in Q4 it was US$632 million.
Although super-prime sales across the 12 global markets rose in the fourth quarter, pushing 2023’s total sales ahead of 2022, they were still 22 per cent lower than the levels reached in 2021.
However, the total was still significantly higher than the pre-pandemic level seen in 2019.
The total value of super-prime sales reached US$31.9 billion in the year ending December 2023.
While this was a 22 per cent decrease from the US$40.7 billion peak during the 2021 pandemic property boom, it was still substantially higher than the pre-pandemic level in 2019.
Knight Frank’s Global Head of Research Liam Bailey said the uptick in super-prime sales activity reverses the slowdown in the previous quarter and reflects a more confident global economic outlook at the end of 2023, as expectations for interest rate cuts in 2024 grew stronger.
“Last year (2023) was a pivotal year for global super-prime markets,” he said.
“While rates continued to climb in the first half of the year, wealth creation rebounded as asset prices surged on the back of the AI – fuelled equity boom, which was then supported in the final quarter by expectations of lower rates.
“2024 is likely to be defined by the eventual pivot to lower debt costs which will boost activity in key global super-prime markets.”
Geneva, which had 38 sales, rounded out the top five.
Hong Kong volumes dipped to 15 sales, pushing it out of the top five markets for the first time.
