Cairns property: Castaways Resort and Spa hits market at Mission Beach
One of the Far North’s most loved resorts has hit the market with huge multimillion-dollar offers expected from cashed-up buyers here and abroad.
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ONE of the Far North’s most loved resorts has hit the market with offers of over $20 million expected.
The Castaways Resort and Spa in Mission Beach is being sold by Melbourne-based property mogul James Neville Smith and is tipped to attract developers and cashed-up buyers both domestically and overseas.
Mr Neville-Smith – who owns one of the country’s biggest hardwood processing firms – is offering the property with a new development application in play capable of expanding the Cassowary Coast resort.
A buyer could also bulldoze the 46-room complex and build a spanking new 226-room beachfront resort.
“We believe the resort, and opportunity it presents, sits without comparison on the entire coastline from Cairns to Noosa,” selling agent Adam Bury, from JLL Hotels and Hospital, said.
“The property has been held by the current family ownership for over a decade, and we therefore truly believe this is a generational opportunity to acquire a one-off resort that will undoubtedly benefit from the golden decade we are to witness in Queensland.”
Mr Bury said the upcoming 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane made it an attractive proposition with Cairns and Brisbane set to get airport and infrastructure expansions in the build-up.
Mission Beach Real Estate agent Steve Wiltshire said he’d seen a surge in property demand in the region and the Castaways sale would “only bring more eyeballs.”
Mr Wiltshire originally sold the resort to the Neville-Smith family in 2011.
“It’s an attractive proposition as the plans are ready to go,” he said.
“And when the big guys wake up Australian tourism is going to boom.
“We are already seeing the demand for regions like ours and up the coast to Cairns and Port Douglas.”
Mr Neville-Smith invested $6 million transforming the property a decade ago.
A $70 million development application for the complete redevelopment of the site has already been ticked off by the council.
Mr Wiltshire said the “Covid effect” on real estate along the Far North Queensland coast had been an eye-opener.
“We are short of stock and are selling properties that have been listed for three or four years,” he said.
“Mission Beach is similar to Port Douglas and Cairns, where people drop in for a holiday and then end up buying.
“Tourism relates to sales and the Covid effect is astounding.
“People are moving from cities to rural towns, and coastal rural is especially desirable.”
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Originally published as Cairns property: Castaways Resort and Spa hits market at Mission Beach
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