Palmer’s river of dreams
What’s on the cards as former politician splurges in Fig Tree Pocket
QUEENSLAND’S richest man Clive Palmer is spending millions buying out his neighbours, with one of them banking $2.1m profit, others knocking him back and another agreeing to sell for $5m in the most recent deal.
Neighbours have been left wondering what the former politician has planned for their secluded Brisbane riverfront suburb, with his most recent deal seeing him hand over $5m to secure a massive 12,100sq m block.
QUEENSLAND’S richest man Clive Palmer is spending millions buying out his neighbours, with one of them banking $2.1m in profit, others knocking him back and another agreeing to sell for $5m in the most recent deal.
Neighbours at Fig Tree Pocket have been left wondering what the former politician has planned for their secluded riverfront suburb, with his most recent deal seeing him hand over $5m to secure a massive 12,100sq m block.
Fellow Queensland richlister and neighbour Bevan Slattery is understood to have already knocked back approaches to sell his home to Palmer. Mr Slattery had paid $8.25m for his property in May 2014, which sits between that of Mr Palmer and his son Michael on the riverfront.
Mr Palmer had bought his riverfront home there in 2018 off embattled Linc Energy founder Peter Bond for $7.5m – a $2m discount on what Rivergum Retreat had been listed for. Mr Bond had two properties on the market there, with the second bought by another party for $2.99m in 2017, which sold for $5m in March this year to Palmer’s firm Closeridge.
Mr Palmer’s son Michael had bought the home next door to Mr Slattery on Ningana Street for $5.1m in July 2018. The site has 1.34ha of land. Mr Palmer’s son also owns a neighbouring 3430sq m property that he’d bought for $1.85m in January 2016, according to CoreLogic records.
In March this year, Mr Palmer’s builders applied for special permission to build one of Brisbane’s largest private home jetties on the river by his Rivergum Retreat property.
Coastal Pontoon & Jetty Repairs asked Brisbane City Council for a development permit for “tidal works” at Mr Palmer’s Fig Tree Pocket home – with the length of the proposed pontoon (28m) about three times that of the 10m length currently “acceptable” in Brisbane riverfront homes.
His most recent property purchase of Oakworth House in Fig Tree Pocket was listed by Alex Jordan of McGrath Paddington as being “situated on Fig Tree Pocket’s most prestigious street” with “a substantial 132-metre-wide frontage”.
Mr Jordan declined to comment on the buyer of the property, instead saying that the prestige market in Brisbane was the best it had been in decades.
Mr Palmer restarted his real estate buying spree after winning a $200m case against CITIC over Pilbara royalty payments in November 2017.