Surfers Paradise’s China House sells for a ‘disappointing’ $1M

It takes an awful lot of time, and meals, to make $2.85 million out of serving the likes of beef and black-bean sauce in a restaurant. That sum can also be ‘lost’ far more rapidly.

IT TAKES an awful lot of time, and meals, to make $2.85 million out of serving the likes of beef and black-bean sauce in a restaurant.

That sum can also be ‘lost’ far more rapidly, as the owner of the property that housed long-term main-street Surfers Paradise noshery the China House can attest.

The restaurant closed a few years back and the property was put on the market in mid-2018.

An unconditional sale was made at $3.85 million and a deposit paid but the buyer, who apparently had backpacker ambitions, failed to pay come settlement day last year.

Now seller Sing Yip Investments, today owned by Benowa resident Frederick Chan, has gulped and swallowed its disappointment.

It’s put the deal behind it big-time, taken a $1 million offer that came with a 14-day settlement period, and has banked the dosh — $2.85 million less than it accepted in 2018.

That $1 million sale is $850,000 lower than the property’s 2018 rateable value.

So has ended a journey that started in 1981 when an older-style house on a 405 sqm site on the western side of Surfers Paradise Boulevard was bought for $310,000.

The China House site in Surfers Paradise sells for $1M. Photo: Supplied.

It was converted to a restaurant, China House, and went on to become something of a favourite with many visitors tasting life in Surfers Paradise.

China House ceased operating a few years back and the property was listed for auction in mid-2018 by Sing Yip Investments.

A buyer, apparently linked to Brisbane businessman Solomon Noel, stepped forward before auction and snaffled the property with a meaty offer.

It’s been suggested the site was intended for a modular building that would house backpackers.

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The Noel group of companies, of which Solomon is CEO, has a modular arm.

The contract on China House was an unconditional one on extended settlement terms, with the deposit believed to have been five per cent of the $3.85 million price.

Sing Yip, which had gone ahead and demolished China House to deliver a cleared site, apparently kept that deposit when the buyer failed to settle.

Subsequently the agents selling the property, which sits between the Clock Hotel and the Centrepoint Arcade, canvassed other would-be buyers.

The journey started in 1981 when an older-style house on a 405 sqm site on the western side of Surfers Paradise Boulevard was bought for $310,000. Picture: Glenn Hampson

They elicited interest from one party at $2.1 million but that interest waned and quick business was done with a company – owned by Victorians Nikola and Jenny Maric – which offered $1 million.

The intent is to keep the site as a longer-term investment but the Marics could have some more expense should they decide to develop it.

There is believed to be asbestos in the ground, which would make decontamination necessary.

Meanwhile, Sing Yip’s 2018 sell-off included a property with a notorious history in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

It was one-time home to an infamous illegal casino and brothel and featured in the late 1980s Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption.

Sing Yip bought the home of Bubbles Bathhouse for $340,000 34 years ago and tipped it out at $1.63 million 18 months ago.