Jade penthouse on the Gold Coast sold by mortgagee for a third of dashed boomtime hopes

The penthouse in the Gold Coast beachfront Jade complex has been finally offloaded by the mortgagee at somewhere between $6.5 million and $7 million, compared with its boomtime ask of $20 million plus.

It was almost a done deal too back in late 2006, with developers the Bezzina Group claiming they'd be setting an record Australian apartment price after a $20 million-plus sale price was agreed for the penthouse.

Developer Mick Bezzina, whose developments stretched over the past two decades far from his Sutherland Shire stamping ground, suggested terms were agreed with an intending overseas buyer.

But the paperwork never got to finalisation, and now six years on it’s been sold following its recent Ray White auction.

The late 2006 touted sale of the three-level unit would have snared the record from the $16.85 million off-the-plan sale in the Juniper development Soul, on the Gold Coast, set in October 2006.

The Soul buyer, said to be a company director in the construction services industry who bought the home just 24 hours after visiting the display centre, is seeking offers through Ray White, with construction nearing its conclusion.

In Sydney Aussie founder John Symond's Walsh Bay sub-penthouse had held the 2006 record when it sold for $16.1 million in September 2006.

The Walsh Bay apartment has 520 square metres of living space plus a 140-square-metre balcony and two boat berths. The Walsh Bay sale broke the $15 million record set by broadcaster John Laws for an apartment at Woolloomooloo Wharf in 2004.

“People see value at prices now,” the Ray White agent Andrew Bell said, commenting on the Jade penthouse sale last week.

Title Tattle recalls the party that accompanied Bezzina's onsite launch in December 2006 in the then near-completed $96 million complex.

The Bezzina Group paid $17.5 million for the site four years earlier and had Bezzina's in-house architect Vic Lake worked with Brisbane architect Scott Peabody from Planit Architecture on the design of the 15-level, 16-pool complex set on the Northcliffe Terrace, close to Q1.

It comes with a distinctive Ticu Gold blade on its roadside exterior with the photovoltaic cells embedded in the blade envisaged as providing a power source for the common property.

The party went late into the night as Bezzina had truly capitalised on the then bullish Gold Coast market with all but two – priced at $5.9 million – of the 12 apartments reportedly sold pre-completion, with prices reportedly starting from about $5 million plus each.

It had also sold both the ground-floor beach bungalows for about $12 million each.

The world No. 4 ranked golfer Adam Scott was the known only off-the-plan buyer. He paid $4.4 million off the plan in 2004, and during his many attempts to sell over the past few years he has dropped his indicative asking price to below $3 million for the garden apartment.

The only time a price has gone up when Toni Lewis, the widow of Bernard, the Lewis Land Corp founder, spent $5.5 million on her apartment in 2008. The unit fetched $4.7 million off the plan in 2004 when sold by the Bezzina Group.

Late last year Toni Lewis's daughter Marnie picked up a unit at $2.5 million, which was the cheapest sale by the mortgagee, who took control in November 2008 with some six off-the-plan settlements never taking place.

All 16 units now sold and the gross proceeds total about $70 million.

The Jade penthouse sold through Ray White Paradise Waters agents Michael Willems and Robert Graham.