A newly built eight-bedroom mansion on a sprawling waterfront parcel has been snapped up after being crowned the Gold Coast’s most-wanted home for 2025.

Named Salt, the dream home is the work of well-connected local concreter Brenton Fisher, whose last property hosted high-profile parties with celebrity mates including billionaire Adrian Portelli and his sometime-business partner, Troy ‘Candy’ Williams.

The double-storey home at 108 Crescent Ave, Hope Island was this week listed as “under offer”, marketed by Kollosche agents, Paul Harrison and Josh Finch after it passed in at auction with another agent.

Details of the sale remained disclosed until the contract is unconditional, however it was listed with price hopes north of $9.5m.

The spectacular home was the region’s most-viewed listing, notching up 45,152 clicks on realestate.com.au in the 12 months to October, PropTrack data shows.

Mr Fisher said the showstopper was not conceived as a party house, despite standout entertaining zones, including a heated pool and spa with sunken firepit, home cinema, and sports bar.

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“It’s a great entertainer, but I designed the house with the scale and separation for a large family that will have this property for generations,” he said.

“It is built extremely well, and it can house extended family and friends so everyone has their own living area.”

Built over a 3,163 sqm allotment with 22m of waterfrontage, Salt follows Mr Fisher’s 2022 project, The Anglers House, a Runaway Bay property renting from $350 an hour as a shoot location.

“It was Troy’s [Williams] birthday on the weekend and I did have a joke with Adrian [Portelli] about buying the house,” Mr Fisher said.

“We laughed about it, because they get so harassed by everyone to buy their house, and generally it’s worth about half of what they want for it.”

Portelli shot to fame bidding for houses on hit TV reno show, The Block, and runs a promotion company where subscribers stand to win luxury homes.

The palatial estate with Beverly Hills looks and A-list vibes unfolds behind a porte-cochere, with an oversized pivot door leading to a grand foyer complete with marble quartz feature wall and circular staircase.

“I’ve gone really over the top with the finishes,” Mr Fisher said.

“I didn’t want a single square metre of that place to be plain, so everywhere is detailed with something unique.”

Premium finishes include multi-level skylights, polished concrete floors, imported marble, sky white dolomite, LED feature lighting, and bespoke joinery.

Six of the property’s eight ensuited bedrooms are upstairs, and there’s also a separate guest house, while downstairs is a 12-seat theatre and bar along with an open-plan kitchen, lounge, and dining area leading to an alfresco terrace with teppanyaki bar.

Mr Harrison said Salt was “one of the best homes on the Gold Coast”, with a building and pest inspector unable to fault its solid concrete construction.

“This home from a construction point of view is flawless,” he said.

The median house price in Hope Island sits at $1.7m, according to PropTrack data.

The post Gold Coast’s ‘most-wanted’ mansion with celebrity links is snapped up appeared first on realestate.com.au.

The best South Australian suburbs and towns to buy property in heading into 2026 have been revealed.

There are eight SA locations on realestate.com.au’s annual Hot 100 list, which details the areas across the country expected to outperform next year and into the future.

With input from various industry experts, several mid to long term growth drivers were considered to compile the list.

They included family appeal, gentrification, rezoning or a demographic shift, infrastructure investment, amenity, affordability, as well as supply and demand.

Brompton, Brooklyn Park, Elizabeth North, Old Noarlunga, Ovingham and Port Adelaide were the metropolitan suburbs included in the list.

Meanwhile, Murray Bridge and Renmark represented regional SA.

Property news editor at realestate.com.au Sarah Dowling said while affordability was a major consideration for prospective buyers at the moment, the list considered more than just the cheap areas.

Suburbs closer to the city that had a lifestyle focus, were going through a period of change or had recorded strong growth in the past year were also considered.

“Affordability still does play a bit of a role,” she said.

“We wanted to do something really comprehensive but also a bit fun.

“It’s a starting point, not so much a ‘read it and make a decision’ list.”

Ms Dowling said experts encouraged househunters wanting to buy in the more expensive areas but couldn’t afford it to consider more affordable neighbouring suburbs.

“They’re offering the same lifestyle … and they will become similar to the suburb next door,” she said.

Real Estate Institute of South Australia chief executive Andrea Heading said while it was important for buyers to purchase a home that was affordable for them at the time, it was also worth considering long-term plans.

“Sometimes it’s affordable to just get a foot in the door and then keep looking for another property,” she said.

“But also consider whether you want to age in place – that’s what we’re seeing people are doing at the moment because they don’t know whether to sell, hold or buy.”

Ms Heading said suburbs like Elizabeth North would always be attractive because they were so affordable, but others like Brompton with newer amenities and easy access to the city appealed to a specific buyer because the price point was higher.

SA suburbs and towns on the Hot 100 list

(Suburb, median house price, 12 month change, 10 year change, year-on-year change in house demand, year-on-year change in total house listings)

Brompton – $865,000, 9 per cent, 79 per cent, -19 per cent, -29 per cent

Brooklyn Park – $990,000, 8 per cent, 111 per cent, -8 per cent, -26 per cent

Elizabeth North – $510,000, 16 per cent, 237 per cent, -16 per cent, -10 per cent

Murray Bridge – $545,000, 17 per cent, 138 per cent, 18 per cent, -8 per cent,

Old Noarlunga – $856,000, 27 per cent, 141 per cent, 15 per cent, 9 per cent

Ovingham – $1.005m, 41 per cent, 90 per cent

Port Adelaide – $719,000, 7 per cent, 54 per cent, 26 per cent, -16 per cent,

Renmark – $436,000, 14 per cent, 118 per cent, 42 per cent, 11 per cent

Source: realestate.com.au

The post Hot 100 suburbs: SA’s next property hotspots for 2026 appeared first on realestate.com.au.

The expanded five per cent deposit scheme, now available for homes priced up to $1 million, should be a game changer but eligibility only matters if enough homes sit below that threshold.

Right now, the number that do is falling fast.

Our latest Ray White analysis of the Gold Coast market alone shows that affordable house sales have more than halved in just four years.

In 2021, more than 35,000 houses across the city sold under $1 million.

Today, that rolling annual figure is just 16,642.

Units have seen a similar drop, down from around 17,000 to 11,720 over the same period. This sharp decline in affordable listings means significantly fewer opportunities for buyers who can access the scheme.

Even more concerning: only one in four detached houses on the Gold Coast now sell under the $1 million threshold.

For units, it’s around seven in ten.

This is better, but still slipping each year as price growth continues to outpace supply.

Where homes are still attainable, competition is fierce.

Coomera and Pimpama, two of the region’s fastest-growing suburbs, dominate for houses under the cap, together accounting for nearly 500 eligible sales in the past year.

For units, Surfers Paradise towers above the pack with 856 sales under $1 million, followed by Southport and Labrador.

These pockets are effectively carrying the weight of affordability in a city where new development has increasingly skewed toward premium product.

The story behind the numbers is simple: demand continues to surge while supply remains constrained.

Interstate migration to the Gold Coast is among the strongest in the country.

Investor activity has returned, providing much needed rental supply but they competing with first home buyers.

Downsizers want to stay local.

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And construction delays and high building costs mean new supply continues to lag well behind what is needed.

Government support has overwhelmingly boosted the demand side of the market, helping more first-home buyers compete.

Without the five per cent deposit scheme, many would continue renting indefinitely.

But boosting demand in isolation has consequences. Increased borrowing power is chasing a shrinking pool of eligible homes, pushing prices higher rather than improving genuine affordability.

This is where the next stage of the affordability challenge lies.

The scheme opens the front door, but planning and supply decisions determine whether there is a house behind it. We must move quickly to deliver more diverse, medium-density options – townhouses, smaller family homes and quality mid-rise developments – particularly in suburbs still offering an attainable path to ownership.

The dream of home ownership remains alive on the Gold Coast.

But without a meaningful lift in supply, particularly at the entry level, that dream will continue to drift further out of reach.

The five per cent deposit scheme has created opportunity. Ensuring enough homes are priced to meet it must now be the priority.

*Nerida Conisbee is the chief economist for the Ray White Group

The post Gold Coast first-home buyers locked out as sub-$1m properties disappear appeared first on realestate.com.au.

Ncontracts, a provider of compliance, risk and vendor management solutions for the financial services industry, released a new survey Tuesday that examines how institutions are managing evolving compliance expectations in 2026.

The survey, “The Future of Compliance: Benchmarking the People, Processes, and Pressures Shaping Compliance in 2026,” included responses from 183 financial institutions across various asset sizes, charters and geographies.

Ncontracts found that leadership support is rising at the compliance level, with 82% of respondents saying they’re satisfied with board and management backing, while 74% are satisfied with their institution’s compliance culture.

More than half (56%) reported stronger integration of compliance into policies, procedures and training since 2021.

Nearly 40% of institutions operate with one or two compliance professionals, while 25% of firms with $1 billion to $10 billion in assets have similarly small teams. Meanwhile, 64% expect budgets to remain flat or shrink in the next 12 to 18 months.

Experience gaps are growing. While most compliance staff are highly experienced, many are nearing retirement. At roughly one in four institutions, 25% of personnel may retire within five years, and 9% of institutions risk losing more than half their compliance team.

Regulatory uncertainty is the top compliance risk at 38%, followed by fair lending (33%), limited resources (30%) and staff training (30%). Traditional risks such as Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering rules (25%) and cybersecurity (16%) have declined from their 2021 peaks.

The study also identified a technological divide. Manual compliance processes generate seven times more examiner concerns and four times lower staff satisfaction. Only 32% report no use of artificial intelligence, while 26% are exploring or piloting AI solutions.

“What we’re seeing is compliance evolving into a strategic function that influences everything from risk culture to boardroom decision-making,” said Michael Berman, founder and CEO of Ncontracts. “Yet compliance teams are being asked to do more with the same resources, creating both challenges and opportunities for institutions willing to invest in modernization and talent development.”

Loft47 — a back-office automation and commission management platform for real estate brokerages — has introduced a new product aimed specifically at teams.

Loft47 for Teams is built to automate commissions, payouts and accounting workflows while giving team leaders real-time visibility into performance and profitability.

“Real estate teams are running increasingly complex businesses within brokerages, and they deserve the same financial intelligence and automation that broker owners enjoy,” Loft47 CEO and founder Sasha Hryciuk said. “Loft47 for Teams eliminates the manual reconciliation, spreadsheets and guesswork that slow down team leaders. They can now access clear, meaningful data in real time and spend their energy driving production and profitability.”

While the product uses Loft47’s existing back-office framework, the new platform adds features tailored to team structures, including automated commission allocations, sub-team tracking and deductions.

It also monitors deposits for every transaction, calculates gross commission income per agent and provides an instant readout of net team earnings.

Team leaders can view performance trends, cash flow and individual agent or sub-team metrics through a unified dashboard. The system also uses AI-powered document auditing to extract key contract details and check compliance automatically.

All deal files and accounting processes — from deposits to payouts to reconciliation — are centralized, the company said.

Early adopters have reported up to a 70% reduction in time spent on commission calculations, more than a 90% drop in manual entry errors and a 50% time savings per deal for administrators.

“Loft47 has completely changed the way we understand our team’s financial performance,” said Claire Crawford, director of operations and associate broker of the Crawford and Lee team with RE/MAX Realty Services. “For the first time, we can clearly separate our team income from the commissions paid out to our agents and instantly see how the business is actually performing.

“The system is easy for our admins to use, integrates seamlessly with Xero, and gives us confidence that our numbers are accurate every single month. Loft47 has become the financial backbone of our operations.”

The Team Experience Dashboard offers interactive snapshots of commission splits, income, closings, pipeline activity and lead sources.

Loft47 for Teams also integrates with widely used industry tools — including Rechat, Dotloop, DocuSign Rooms, SkySlope, Zum Rails, QuickBooks Online and Xero.

Loft47 said onboarding typically takes less than 30 days, with a review of a team’s structure and accounting workflows, followed by configuration of imported deals, users and commission models.

Teams then complete training and test runs before going live, with continued support after launch, according to leaders.