High-flyers pouncing on glamour condos
BUYERS with a taste for opulence and money-making opportunities have fuelled a fire under prices for condominiums at glamour property Palazzo Versace.
Enthusiasm for the condos, which have been a haven for everyone from rock stars to actors and billionaires, has hit a high.
Buyers appear undaunted by previously testy relations between the condo owners and the Palazzo Versace hotel’s management.
Some of the latest buyers, in what’s been a quick-in, quickout approach, have made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One buyer snared a condo for $2.8m and sold it five days later for $3.2m.
In another quick turnaround, a condo bought for $2.65m was passed on at $3.2m.
The fact the condos are held under company title is an inducement to some people who want to stay out of the public eye to buy into the Broadwater-fronting property.
Company title makes it near impossible to search records and find out who’s who in the condos or what they made, or lost, on their properties.
The buyers score handsomely in another regard – they don’t have to pay stamp duty, which even on a $2.5m property, is close to $120,000.
Buyers also are finding that the outgoings on the condos are, in many cases, comparable to those in some high-rises.
The condo levies start about $26,000 a year and hit close to $55,000 for a penthouse.
The owners don’t have to fork out extra for rates and water – those costs, and a contribution to the annual leasehold fee on the site, are met out of the levies.
Anyone wanting to cover those fees or make money out of their condo can put them in the hotel letting pool – one owner says gross rents of $2000 a night are not uncommon.
The Palazzo Versace hotel and the condos opened in 2000, with the 72 condos selling out at an average of $1.36m a year before construction was completed.
The biggest buyer was Kiwi ex-ski champion Vaughan Bullivant, who’d just sold his Bullivant’s Natural Health Products for $135m. He spent $11.7m buying six condos, including penthouses.
Billionaires known to have owned penthouses have been mining investor Clive Palmer and Marina Mirage shopping centre owner Con Makris.
Sam Gance, one of the founders of Chemist Warehouse, bought a penthouse for a record $6.45m last year.
International stars who have bedded down in the condos or adjoining hotel have included Rod Stewart, U2, Mariah Carey, Pink, Celine Dion, and Rowan Atkinson.
Knights also have spent nights at Palazzo Versace – including a Scottish laddie called Sir Jackie Stewart. Former motor-racing champ Sir Jackie’s stay was not quite, to use a Scottish term, a wee one, he booked one of the Bullivant penthouses and stayed for two months at $1200 a night.
Early last year, the then manager of the hotel Jane Kingston caused a stir when she wrote that she would rather be “doused in petrol” and set alight than deal with “a barrage of abuse” from wealthy condo owners.
The comment came after months of disagreement between condo owners and the hotel over fees and services.
By all accounts, the hotel’s current management and the condo owners today have a far more cordial relationship.