With around 70 auctions listed for the Gold Coast this week to Sunday, according to SQM Research, auctioneers are scrambling to keep up with demand.

Ray White Surfers Paradise CEO Andrew Bell said the trend in the current pumped-up market came as sellers were moving wholesale into prioritising an auction strategy.

Bell, who owns and operates Queensland’s largest real estate company with brother Greg, said the agency was conducting around 15 auctions a week. For independent auctioneers a typical Saturday now looked like 40 or 50 auctions for only around 10 auctioneers, he said.

“This is something never heard of, never before,” Bell said.

“There are many reasons to sell via auction and they vary depending on market conditions. But this is one market where anyone that didn’t auction will never know what they left behind, they could have maybe got another $10,000, $20,000 or even $50,000.”

Celebrity auctioneer Jason Akermanis said he was following the demand and expanding his Blue Moon Property agency to Burleigh on the southern Gold Coast.

“It’s crazy, just crazy times there at the moment,” the triple Brisbane Lions premiership star-turned real estate agent said.

“We know the Gold Coast needs auctioneers and we’re ready to help.”

The run on the Gold Coast property market means 12 of the city’s 52 suburbs now have a median house price of more than $1 million.

The Real Estate Institute of Queensland’s latest market report shows five Gold Coast suburbs have joined the $1 million median price club over the past 12 months.

Currumbin Valley, neighbouring Currumbin and Tallebudgera in the city’s south, along with Runaway Bay and Tallai were the market-beating newcomers.

House prices in more affordable  Gold Coast coastal suburbs have also started to move in line with buyer demand for the city’s beachfront.

Housing supply data from Select Residential Property research shows prices in some non-coastal Gold Coast suburbs were also tipped to climb by up to 23 per cent over the next two years as buyers sought bigger properties that were still within close proximity to the water.

It found house values in the Gold Coast suburbs of Elanora and Worongary were expected to rise by 22 per cent each over the next 24 months, adding $165,838 and $154,711 to the suburbs’ median price respectively.

Such was the interest, Worongary was already attracting almost 3,000 online searches per property and Elanora close behind with 2,193 hits per listing.

Bell said the pandemic-driven market, record low interest rates, injection of liquidity into the market place through government grants and access to super money, and inter-state migration to Queensland locations such as the Gold Coast was fuelling the boom.

“Plus once people start to hear about market running there’s a sheep mentality. People hear about others buying so people jump in too,” Bell said.

“These are unique circumstances, never been seen before, and we’ve certainly never seen such a combination of them at the same time. That’s what’s making this market so different.

“But like everything, there’s a beginning and an end. This won’t run indefinitely.”