Aussie beach homes with allure: Countdown to the summer holidays

This one really offered the prospect of sand between the toes regularly over summer, but also bringing plenty of it inside the Newell Beach house.

It sold for $965,000 a few months ago. The four-bedroom Tony Driscoll-designed beach house is positioned to maximise the view and cool sea breezes.

Set on the edge of the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef, there's also the rainforest and mountains of the Daintree in the hinterland.

The casual beach house, which is absolute beachfront on secluded Newell Beach, is set just 20 minutes north of cosmopolitan Port Douglas.

It was being sold fully furnished with the holiday letting business already in place and running.

Mark Flinn of Ray White Port Douglas had the listing from March 2010 until August 2012 when it sold.

The initial asking price was $1.9 million, and this time last year they'd have taken $1.3 million.

The 912-square-metre holding last sold at $566,000 in 2002.

There had been three sales above $1.1 million on the strip of five homes in 2007.

There's the chance to buy next door  at $795,000 through Raine & Horne Port Douglas Mossman agent David Cotton.

It's The Treehouse, an elevated, two-bedroom holiday home.