Gerry Harvey and Katie Page’s Gold Coast property sellout kicks off

Gerry Harvey and Katie Page, husband and wife and ‘workmates’, are taking steps to wrap up a sometimes bumpy 14-year foray into the Gold Coast property market.

GERRY Harvey and Katie Page, husband and wife and ‘workmates’, are taking steps to wrap up a sometimes bumpy 14-year foray into the Gold Coast property market.

The Harvey Norman chairman and his CEO, owners of the Magic Millions, are chasing buyers for nine properties that collectively owe them well north of $25 million.

Most of their selloff – eight properties -- centres around quiet Runaway Bay street Poinsettia Ave, an address with Broadwater frontage that is not unfamiliar to Eddie Groves, founder of the failed ABC Learning Group.

The other asset is a three-level villa in Main Beach’s Peak Ave, due to go to auction this month.

The Poinsettia apartments that Gerry Harvey had planned on some of his land.

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There is, of course, a tenth property on the market – the remaining available apartment in Katie’s luxury M3565 boutique tower at Main Beach.

The buyers being targeted obviously will be people of substance – they’re unlikely to be looking for Harvey Norman five-year interest-free funding.

Potential buyers are unlikely to be offered Harvey Norman terms, such as five-year interest-free funding.

Gerry, an 81-year-old billionaire, is no property novice – he’s even built dongas in mining towns.

The co-founder of Harvey Norman in 1982 also is no stranger to the Gold Coast property market.

The last unsold apartment in the M3565 development has hit the market.

In the early 90s he swooped on more than 5ha at Bundall – today home to Harvey Norman and Domayne stores.

It was land which the late Sir Justin Hickey had housed ambitions of developing twin buildings called the 21st Century Towers.

Gerry’s major foray into the city’s residential market came in 2007.

Eddie Groves, who later was bankrupted, had owned a 2784sqm holding in Poinsettia for nearly two years, intending develop a mansion overlooking the Broadwater.

Gerry picked it up for $11 million and went on to add two adjoining lots and two other properties elsewhere in the street.

Gerry Harvey and Katie Page at the 2020 Magic Millions barrier draw at Surfers Paradise Foreshore on the Gold Coast.

The former door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman drew up plans for 31 top-shelf apartments on the larger holding but the city council vetoed the plan.

Some of the lots quietly were offered in the market early last year at $5 million each.

Three weeks ago all of Gerry’s Poinsettia holdings openly were marketed, apparently with the intention of drawing offers.

Katie also has a presence in the street, one that she established a year before her hubby bought the Groves land.

She bought two apartments for $1.45 million, merged them, and today owns a four-level ‘biggie’ which in September was for sale at $3.25 million.

The property, like her Peak Ave villa, is to be auctioned later this month.

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The 64-year-old Mareeba-born daughter of a bank manager has had wider ambitions on the Gold Coast.

She bought a site fronting the Broadwater at Labrador for $2.1 million in 2007, had a tower called Ripple approved in 2019, then sold out to Chinese buyers for $3 million.

Her beachfront Main Beach project, M3565, was a problem child from day one.

She paid a hefty $15 million for the site pre-GFC, had a nightmare time getting planning approval, and since the building was completed three years ago has chopped prices to gain sales.

The success, or otherwise, of the Gerry-Katie Gold Coast selloff might prove there’s more money to be made in retailing.

Perhaps, given their Magic Millions proprietorship, the saying ‘horses for courses’ might have some merit.