Queensland’s $18m ‘ghost estate’ put to rest after townhouse sale

A group of townhouses left abandoned for years in Queensland is finally set to be lived in.

The 18 properties, described by some locals as a “ghost estate”, were completed 21 years ago but left empty when the developer fell on hard times just before COVID-19.

“The interesting thing was that this sat vacant and abandoned for so long,” Troy Fitzgerald with Ray White Malan & Co Palm Beach told the Australian Financial Review.

“Some people didn’t even know they existed…. It’s always been shrouded in a bit of mystery and some people have referred to it as a ghost estate over the years.”

Fitzgerald said the properties, located on a pocket of land near Stockland Burleigh Heads, were snapped up by accommodation provider Aspen Living in 2020 for more than $3 million.

“It was all on one title when they bought it. It was old and tatty. They came in, put in new carpet and painted, put in new light fittings finished off the road, the sewer network and services,” he said.

“Then they put tenants in after they finished.”

Years later, when it came to a potential sale, Fitzgerald said the decision was to sell in “one line”, to a fund manager or superannuation fund, or strata-title the places and split them up.

The decision was to sell them one at a time – turning $3 million into $18 million.

The townhouses were a mix of four different floor plans – two bedrooms plus a study, four bedrooms plus a study and three bedrooms without a study.

Fitzgerald, who managed the sale, said the first property sold in April last year, but didn’t settle until late December.

Twelve others in the block were sold off the plan, with the buyers moving in and renting until the title change came through on their homes.

At one point, Fitzgerald said the popularity of the homes meant prices went up.

“We were getting slammed. We had 20, 30 people to our open homes so we released four at a time,” he told the AFR.

All up, they put an extra “couple of hundred thousand on the total bill,” he added.

This week, Fitzgerald sold the last remaining townhouse in the group, number 9.

He said there were 14 offers for the last place, with price expectations of around the $920,000 and $930,000 mark.

“When you get competition, you get a good price. Did the seller get a good price? They did, compared with the others in the complex. Did the buy get a good deal? In my opinion, they did,” he said.

Number 9 sold by private treaty for $965,000.

The median house price for the Gold Coast region of Broadbeach-Burleigh, which includes Burleigh Heads, is about $1.8 million, according to Domain data.

As a comparison, the median price in Burleigh Heads for an apartment is about $1.1 million.

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