BOOM LEADS WAY TO DREAM BUILD
BEFORE the property boom, Dave and Imigen Brown never imagined building their dream home by the beach.
But after selling their Miami house last year for twice what they’d paid, the family’s brand-new resortstyle home is under construction on the site of a knockdown they snapped up in the same hot market.
Ms Brown studied interior design and managed the $100,000 renovation of their first Gold Coast property while her pilot husband was away.
They had purchased the three-bedroom house on Bardon Ave for $870,000 in 2016.
It sold for $1.725m last September through Guy Powell, of Harcourts Coastal.
The Browns paid $1.0625m for an “unliveable shack” on a 405sq m block nearby in July 2021.
It was recently demolished, and the Browns and their two sons, Ollie, 5, and Darcy, 3, are renting in the suburb while their modern Hamptons-inspired home takes shape.
“After we had Darcy, we started to realise we needed more room, but we wanted to buy a new place before we sold in case we got locked out of the market,” Ms Brown said.
“I don’t think building a new home was ever even in our sights until this, and if we didn’t get the incredible price for Bardon Ave.”
Proptrack data shows house prices in Miami were up 24.8 per cent over the year to June to a median of $1.47m. But growth has slowed over the last quarter, with sales prices down 3.14 per cent.
Mr Powell said Miami was moving through a gentrification phase as more young families moved in to renovate or rebuild original shacks.
“I’ve lived in the suburb for 10 years and when I bought in, it was an older demographic and some young families, but that mix is shifting as we are seeing more young buyers coming in and either knocking down or renovating the original homes. The area now has a great youthful energy,” Mr Powell said.