Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin - Property
What a thrilling year it’s been
We dive in on 2022’s craziest listings and colourful characters
FROM weird sale amounts and media-hungry agents to eyepopping auctions and influencers behaving badly, the Gold Coast property market is always entertaining. Among the quirkiest moments of real estate in 2022, a local model was caught by security camera stripping down to a bikini to pose in front of a luxury new duplex at Palm Beach, which was marketed by Ed Cherry, of Harcourts Coastal.
CCTV footage showed brand influencer Holly Cheesman dropping her jeans to have her photo taken in front of the Jefferson Lane property’s aesthetic facade.
The snap of Ms Cheesman in a colourful string bikini became her Instagram profile picture, while pants-down footage of the bold stunt was also shared to social media by the home’s owner-builder, Nick McDonald.
And in other eyebrow-raising stunts, the winning bidder of a hot property known as Ruin X rocked up midway through the auction in a blinged-out Maserati.
A crowd of more than 300 people had gathered at the fully rendered Burleigh Waters house, which went on to become the year’s most viewed listing on realestate.com.au.
It sold under the hammer for $2,713,888 after the 26-year-old Melbourne buyer made his dramatic entrance.
Kollosche agent Eoghan Murphy said the buyer’s fashionably late arrival had been a “surprise”, and led to a 40-minute consultation behind closed doors.
And what would real estate on the Glitter Strip be without a smattering of star power?
A sprawling Gold Coast Hinterland estate that was the backdrop for Hollywood actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts’ latest film sold for a record $7.2m.
Wyndhaven, a 18.21ha hilltop property at 200-204 Hartley Rd, Tamborine Mountain, sold ahead of auction through marketing agent Emma Hawker, of Ray White Rural Tamborine Mountain. It smashed the previous record of $5.5m, paid in 2016 for a Great Gatsby-styled mansion.
Then, there was the intriguing tale of the Mermaid Beach shack built in the wrong street, sold for an eye-watering sum despite its reluctant owner.
The beachside cottage held by the same family for nearly 100 years sold for just shy of $5m following a last-ditch effort by the fifth-generation owner Richard Fetherston to derail the auction.
The Arthur St shack marketed by Luke Henderson and Matt Maguire, of Professionals John Henderson, was originally built on the wrong street in the 1940s, before being moved several years later to its rightful position across the sand dunes, to the vacant land which had been held by the family since 1928.
And finally, there were agents like Matt Micallef, who took self-branding to a whole new level.
The Ray White Robina agent was a contestant on Channel 10’s The Traitors.
It involved a group of 24 players, known as the “faithful”, working through challenges and surviving eliminations to win up to $250,000. However, there were four “traitors” within the group, whose job was to lie, cheat and eliminate the faithful, while remaining undetected.
Mr Micallef, 32, said he was approached to audition for the show.
“My property videos are unique and entertaining, so they obviously saw those and reached out. I’m a huge risk-taker in life so I just decided to go through the interview process.”