There were mutiple possible buyers on many of the prestige Gold Coast offerings, but the gap between them and the vendor price expectations evidently remains deep.

Not one of the 12 prestige Gold Coast properties sold under the hammer at the auction held by Ray White last night.

There had been one pre-auction sale.

High hopes for Gold Coast property turnaround appear to be premature.

Yes, there were five bidders on one offering, and several had up to four bidders, but others were rapidly passed in with no bids.

An apartment at the problematic Jade, Surfers Paradise complex was withdrawn just hours out from the event and a heritage hinterland home at Guanaba was pulled from offer because the best buyer hope was from an interstate buyer whose flight plans had been delayed.

Ray White Surfers Paradise CEO Andrew Bell thinks the lack of under the hammer sales was due to sellers' growing belief that the market had significantly stepped up, when the prestige sector was still on the road to recovery.

"Sellers are hearing the market is jumping and they think it's as strong as Sydney," he told the local paper.

But that's only part of the situation. Getting vendors to sell at big losses is the other part of the impasse.

Retired car dealer Laurie Sutton was among the vendors last night. The highest offer was $1.55 million - with five bidders - when Sutton had paid $1.75 million in 2003 for the Beachside Tower, Main Beach penthouse (pictured below). The entire top floor has 230 square metre space on the 17th floor at 3545 Main Beach Parade.

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A Sanctuary Cove home at 7309 Bayside Close (pictured below) was passed in at $5.7 million having last sold for $7.22 million in June 2010. There had been an unsuccessful July 2013 auction campaign too.

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It attracted some Chinese buying attention last night, however given all the media hype, I was surprised at the sparseness of their attendance last night.

A vacant residential building block at 85 Commodore Drive, Surfers Paradise (pictured below) was passed in at $2.77 million, with four bidders. Its last sale was $2.8 million in 2009, having traded as high as $4.25 million in 2008.

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Bidding on the Modena on Chevron penthouse stalled at $1.7 million having sold for $1.67 million in July 2013, barely covering costs.

No doubt a few sales will come the day after. And Andrew Bell noted some 18 sales had occured since Monday's 108 auction gala, The Event, taking the clearance rate close to 70 %.

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