Mystery surrounds Toorak billionaire making waves on the Goldie

Wealthy Australians are flocking to the east coast to buy beachfront real estate but nothing has turned heads quite like the $25 million sale of a mansion on Gold Coast’s “billionaires row”. So just who is the billionaire Toorak buyer behind the record buy?

Mystery surrounds a billionaire Toorak buyer who snapped up a beachfront Gold Coast mansion for a record $25 million this week. Picture: Supplied

Mystery surrounds a billionaire Toorak buyer who snapped up a beachfront Gold Coast mansion for a record $25 million this week.

Former AFL player turned Bali beach club developer Tony Smith is the seller who pocketed the $25 million for his prominent Mermaid Beach pile.

But the new owner, according to one flashy Gold Coast real estate agent, is like a “ghost”.

“They fly under the radar,” he says of a wave of cashed-up buyers who have bought “all along the east coast.”

The Queensland beachfront strip was once called millionaires row. Then it was multi-millionaires row. Now it’s billionaires row.

The Mermaid Beach property which was sold to a mystery Toorak buyer. Picture: Jerad Williams

Mermaid Beach has been dubbed billionaires row.

Melbourne biggies are buying in. Property magnate Max Beck has long had a house on the strip with developer Simon Lee from Melbourne’s Lee Brothers Fencing also owning beachfront properties.

Toy billionaire Manny Stul from Shopkins craze bought Mermaid Beach home, Tidemark, in 2016.

Stul, who was the first Australian to be named Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year, bought the home from Billabong executive Scott Perrin.

Clive Palmer is only a hop, skip and jump down the road.

Billionaires Row is not to everyone’s taste. “Ukraine style mansions are not really my thing,” quipped one Toorak type when Page 13 called at the cocktail hour.

Former AFL player and seller Tony Smith was tight lipped on who he bought the propety for a record $25 million. Picture: Luke Marsden.

Surely it must be a Chinese buyer say the silvertails.

Not so, said a white-shoer from the glitter strip.

“Chinese don’t buy beachfront. They like the views, but they don’t like sand.”

According to this estate agent the bluechippers from down south are rocking up to the Gold Coast with “bags of cash.”

“I had one client from Melbourne, who can’t holiday at his house in the South of France, so he wants the next best thing, which is the sun and surf while we are in COVID.

“The number doesn’t matter to them.”

He wasn’t talking about the postcode.

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