House rich in history
... but no financial windfalls for some well-heeled investors
AFORMER V8 Supercars el supremo, a mobilephone business operator who turned developer, and a Bond Uni student who was bankrupted all might ruefully have looked back at a spot of property news last week.
They are former investors in land around Sorrento’s Freyberg House, these days the Gold Coast’s mayoral mansion.
Hence their interest, and memories of those not-somemorable investments, might have been piqued when mayor Tom Tate announced he was selling Freyberg House, which is in the suburb’s elite Riviera estate.
There’s a chance that the riverfront giant, completed for developer the late Bruce ‘Kelly’ Small in 1980, might well make way for a residential subdivision.
It’s in a spot on the northern bank of the Nerang River that previously has enticed ex-V8 boss and now Gold Coast Suns chairman Tony Cochrane, developer Ron Bakir, and Bond law graduate Jason Ong.
All bought Freyberg House land and exited with far from spectacular success – in fact, nil success.
Jason was the catalyst for the Bakir and Cochrane forays when, back in 2003, he sailed in out of the blue and set a Gold Coast residential record by paying $11 million for Freyberg House.
The attraction was not the house but the 2.79ha site and its subdivision potential.
Jason carved the site up into 22 housing lots in what has been tagged the Waterview estate, with the biggest of the lots a parcel that contained Freyberg House.
He found a ready market for the riverfront land, with Tony buying two lots for $2.39 million in 2004.
They were sold 15 months later for $2.45 million, showing a modest gain that quite possibly was wiped out by holding costs and commissions.
HomeCorp owner and former phone retailer Ron took a shine to one of the riverfront blocks when it was up for re-sale in 2008, on the eve of the GFC.
He paid $1.875 million for the 837sq m lot and tried to on-sell it as the country came out of the GFC in 2013.
Last year he finally found a buyer, at $1.5 million, in the form of adjoining landholders Mayor Tom and wife Ruth who had picked up Freyberg House for $3.3 million two years earlier.
There seems little doubt that the Freyberg House foray was a disaster for then-young developer Jason and also for his investors.
He was bankrupted and fled Australia allegedly owing investors $7 million, apparently settling into a life of luxury in Kuala Lumpur.
Now the next chapter in the life of the 38-year-old Freyberg House is set to unfold with the Tate decision to sell and downsize.
One scenario is that a buyer might target the total Tate riverfront holding of more than 5000sq m for an eight-lot subdivision.
That would mean bowling Freyberg House, a doublebrick two-level mansion with a floor area of more than 1400sq m and which apparently incorporated more than $1 million worth of timber when it was built.
If that happens, recyclers could well be camped on the doomed doorstep.