BOB Ell, who’s made a billion out of property, well could be called Box Seat Bob in the wake of the latest planning tome.
Canny Bob is sitting on thousands of blocks of land, potentially worth billions of dollars, at a time when all indications are that the Gold Coast is in for migraine-like supply headaches.
The 192-page 2017 Shaping SEQ report predicts the Gold Coast will need more than 158,000 new houses, high-rise apartments, units, and townhouses by 2041, with more than 30,000 of those freestanding homes.
Coomera, Upper Coomera and Pimpama (which the Housing Industry Association has labelled the nation’s No. 1 population-growth hotspot) are identified as the major areas into which the city can expand its supply of house lots.
It seems the Leda camp has deduced that there’ll be no land left in those areas in seven years, with some of the land in the so-called urban footprint in those suburbs unable to be developed because of factors like flood concerns and koala corridors.
It also believes that, at a very optimistic best, only 15,000 detached houses could be built in the city’s entire existing urban footprint.
With few other options for supply, the Leda view is that going south for sites for freestanding homes might be the only choice.
Bob’s boffins also have worked out that by 2024 prices for housing lots could well have doubled.
They should know — lots in investor-driven Leda estates at Pimpama have been going up by $2000 a month for the past four years.
If that appreciation rate persists, a lot that cost $200,000 in 2013 and today sells for nearly $300,000 could cost been approaching $600,000 or so by 2024.
The bottom line is that Bob appears to be sitting pretty for years to come.
His Cobaki estate, a sprawling holding that he bought in 1994 and which sits behind the Gold Coast airport but actually is in NSW, is approved for 5500 lots.
At today’s Pimpama prices, those lots would be worth $1.65 billion but that figure’s a major understatement.
The Cobaki land is high, largely flat and overlooks the ocean and by the time it hits the market later next year the owner-occupier blocks are likely to start well north of $400,000, if not $500,000.
That reflects that lots sitting below Cobaki, at Tugun and Bilinga, are starting today at around $500,000.
Further south, behind Casuarina in northern NSW, Bob owns the giant Kings Forest holding which is approved for 4500 lots.
An agent who has flagged a possible 2018 release of Kings Forest land already has more than 500 people on a buyer waiting list.
Meanwhile, Box Seat Bob, who’s spent tens of millions on earthworks on his two trophy assets, apparently is getting plenty of knocks on the door from major players with big chequebooks who
want all or part of Cobaki. So far, the Ell fish hasn’t bitten.
TONY Quinn, a Sanctuary Cove resident who made a meaty profit on VIP Petfoods, could be on the verge of achieving a very sweet ‘earn’ out of Darrell Lea chocolates.
Would-be buyers are running a ruler over Darrell Lea, bought from receivers for $25 million in 2012 and revived with the help of $30 million in Quinn money.
There are suggestions the Quinn camp, which sold VIP for $410 million prior to the chocolate foray, could get well north of $200 million for the business.
SOVEREIGN Islands mansion owner Wenxing Ma might have a competitor on his doorstep should he go ahead with plans for Broadbeach’s tallest building.
Wenxing, who has spent $8 million on a Mary Ave site, has mooted a 94-level apartment tower, a plan which hasn’t been greeted with great enthusiasm by city council officers.
Now it appears another party is busy trying to amalgamate a site on Wenxing’s Mary Ave boundary and also to add a Surf Pde property into the equation.
GEOFF Booth, a developer who was battered by the GFC, appears to be making a high-octane comeback.
He’s being linked to the $750,000 purchase of a slab of Merrimac land from the German Club on which a servo is being built.
Geoff and partner Graham Spottiswood built the $60 million Pavilions community at Biggera Waters in 2005, only later to fall out, and both ultimately were bankrupted.