Despite a volatile year for the broader housing sector, Australia’s luxury market continues to outpace expectations — but not every city is sharing in the spoils.
3 min
Australia’s top-tier property market has not only held its ground but surged ahead, outperforming median market trends over the past decade.
According to Ray White’s Luxury Market Report 2025, demand for prestige homes with location, character, and uniqueness has fuelled long-term price growth, with Sydney and Brisbane emerging as key players in the nation’s high-end housing boom.
While the broader property market has faced its share of turbulence, the report reveals that luxury homes, particularly those in tightly held or lifestyle-rich areas, are proving to be recession-proof investments.
Ray White’s data shows that over the past decade, luxury house prices have grown 84%, compared to 70% growth in median-priced houses. Luxury apartments, too, posted significant gains — up 58% over the same period, outpacing the 31% growth seen in median units.
This upward trajectory highlights what affluent buyers have long known: scarcity and quality always command a premium.
“Luxury buyers are motivated by lifestyle and legacy — not just returns,” the report states. “They seek homes with architectural character, privacy, exclusivity and proximity to amenities. And increasingly, they’re willing to pay for uniqueness.”
In a rare deviation, 2023 marked the first time in ten years that the median market outperformed the luxury market. This was attributed in part to tighter credit conditions, a cautious global investment climate, and a flight to perceived value in the lower-priced brackets.
But Ray White analysts believe this was a temporary recalibration rather than a trend reversal.
“Across the long-term horizon, prestige continues to outperform,” the report concludes. “The recent dip was more reflective of macroeconomic sentiment than a fundamental shift in demand for luxury.”
Unsurprisingly, Sydney remains the juggernaut, commanding 64% of all national luxury house sales and 51% of unit sales. Harbour views, limited supply and generational wealth underpin its continued dominance.
But perhaps the most compelling story of 2025 is Brisbane’s ascent. For the first time, luxury house and apartment prices in Queensland’s capital have crossed the $1 million threshold, and buyer activity shows no signs of slowing.
Migration from southern states, lifestyle appeal, and the impending 2032 Olympics are all contributing to the city’s new prestige identity.
“Brisbane is no longer the underdog,” the report says. “Buyers from Sydney and Melbourne are increasingly seeing it as a value play — and that’s driving demand for luxury stock.”
The Gold Coast, meanwhile, has quietly expanded its market share in the luxury unit space by 9%, thanks to surging demand from downsizers and international buyers. Waterfront apartments and branded residences are proving particularly hot.
In contrast to the upbeat figures from Queensland and New South Wales, Melbourne has experienced a notable retreat. The city’s share of luxury unit sales has fallen 4%, and luxury house sales have dropped 12%.
While the report stops short of sounding alarm bells, it attributes Melbourne’s cooling to shifting lifestyle priorities, post-pandemic relocation patterns, and ongoing population churn.
“Melbourne’s prestige market isn’t declining — it’s simply being rebalanced,” the report notes. “But with the right architectural product and location, the appetite is still there.”
More than ever, luxury buyers are seeking differentiation — properties that offer not just size or finishes, but a distinctive story. Think: heritage homes with contemporary restorations, homes with water access or panoramic views, and penthouses in boutique developments rather than high-density towers.
Homes that stand out are commanding serious premiums — often well above suburb medians — especially in traditionally non-prestige postcodes.
“The days of ‘McMansions’ being considered luxury are over,” the report adds. “Modern buyers want soul, not just square footage.”
Whether it’s a terrace in Paddington, a penthouse in Newstead, or a vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, the message from the Ray White Luxury Report is clear: when it comes to high-end real estate, scarcity is king.
As buyers seek long-term value and lifestyle investments, the prestige market is expected to remain resilient, particularly in locations with strong infrastructure, lifestyle appeal, and development restrictions that limit supply.
In a world of economic uncertainty, luxury real estate is increasingly being seen not just as an asset, but as a form of security, both financial and emotional.
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Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.
2 min
A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.
The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.
“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”
The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.
It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.
In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.
“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.
The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.
“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.
He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.
The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.
“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.
His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.
“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.
When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.
They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.
The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.
For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.
“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”
As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.
“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”
Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.
