Gold Coast developer Jim Raptis sells riverfront Commodore Dr, Paradise Waters home for $5million

A Gold Coast developer looks to have turned a quick buck on a property which adjoins a palatial abode he calls home. Quentin Tod has the latest.

Jim Raptis, a veteran developer who is in the tax office’s sights, looks to have turned a quick buck on a house which adjoins the palatial Paradise Waters abode he calls home.

A Raptis-linked company signed up for the riverfront Commodore Dr house in March 2021, settled the $4.75 million buy in March this year, and put the property on the market eight weeks later.

Developer Jim Raptis. Picture: Glenn Hampon

It’s sale, believed to be for around $5 million, comes as the never-say-die developer is out to unload a Broadbeach site on which he’d planned a tower.

DISCOVERING BEAUTY IN ISLAND’S RAW GEM

Two long-term property players have surfaced with stakes in a plum development site on the riverfront in the hotspot that is Chevron Island. Mark Howard and Steve Anderson, over a 15-month period, have been nibbling at units in Aroona Marina inStanhill Dr.

The 12-title property, on a sweeping corner, was built 55 years ago and consists of six buildings. Its site, to use one propertytype’s enthusiastic description, is “a raw gem waiting to be polished”.

107 Stanhill Dr, Chevron Island. Surfers Paradise

The 1710sq m holding looks north down the Nerang River, with views that take in Cronin Island, the towers of Southport, andParadise Waters.

The Howard and Anderson camps, along with the owners of the balance of the units, have put the property on the market at atime when Chevron Island is awash with “dry” development sites.

They are destined mainly for towers, including retirement high-rises, with development on the island on track to hit a pacenever previously seen.

Land is not so easy to buy on the riverfront, with the availability of eastern and north-facing sites crimped and prices atall-time highs.

One 506sq m site in Stanhill Dr, with an older home on it and overlooking Budds Beach, is under contract for north of $4.5m.

The Aroona Marina holding, which is more than three times larger, was given a rateable value of $6.2m in June – a figure thatequites to $3600 a square metre.

Tower sites that aren’t on the waterfront on Chevron have been selling for up to $3500 a square metre.

107 and 105 Stanhill Dr at Chevron Island.

They offer developers the chance to go high and tap into a wider pool of buyers – those who don’t want the words “million” or “millions” on the price-tag.

The Aroona foray by developer Mr Howard comes as the one-time V8 motor-racing driver, who went through a bruising time in the GFC, has been out to claw his way back into the property game.

He was the fellow who spotted the potential of the Aroona Marina land and between July and September last year spent $1.615mbuying three units.

It appears Mr Anderson, former owner of Hayman Homes, agreed the site was special.

He tucked three Aroona units into his portfolio for close to $2m.

The owners of the property’s other six units – one of them bought for $125,000 in 1998 – were willing to participate whena move to test the market was suggested.

The options for the land appear two-fold.

One is to chop the 1710sq m site into three or four lots for luxury homes – each with a river frontage of more than 14m and with mighty views.

107 and 105 Stanhill Dr at Chevron Island.

Such luxury homes are dime a dozen along the Stanhill riverfront – there’s even a three-floor one underway on the westernboundary of Aroona.

The other option is to build a block of luxury apartments – the zoning has a height limit of 9m.

High-standard apartments already exist in the street – several doors away a four-level building called River Isles two yearsago achieved sales between $3.5m and $4.5m.

Meanwhile, the job of testing the waters with Aroona Marina has gone to First National Surfers Paradise principal Bob Rollington, and Harry Kakavas, from Kollosche.

IT’S XANADU ON BEACH FOR MORRIS

Chris Morris, a founder of the Computershare group, has renewed an affair with Main Beach on the heels of selling out of the beachfront at Mermaid Beach for $21 million.

Computershare co-founder Chris Morris.

The 74-year-old businessman, who sold his Mermaid home in May, has made a $7 million investment in the high life, buying a penthouse at Xanadu in Main Beach Pde.

Last year he moved out of the same street after finding a $5.8 million buyer for a ground-floor apartment in the beachfront the Ocean Isles.

NORTHCLIFFE PENTHOUSE ON MARKET

Nick Gordon, the founder of Kiwi communications company Zintel, is out to dial up a buyer for a penthouse in beachfront tower Northcliffe Residences in Surfers Paradise.

Andrea and Nick Gordon.

Nick and wife Andrea bought the four-bedroom penthouse for $6 million off the plan in 2016 but it’s had little use because of Covid-induced restrictions on tans-Tasman flights.

The Gordons previously owned a sub-penthouse in a non-beachfront Surfers tower, Artique, and it was sold for $1.75 million in 2019.