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Booming Byron pushes locals out of market

With just 84 plots, it punches above its weight in terms of high prices and the executive calibre of its owners.

Wategos Beach, Byron Bay. Source: Mark Goldstein
Wategos Beach, Byron Bay. Source: Mark Goldstein

The idyllic northern NSW township of Byron Bay has long had a reputation for attracting hard-core party goers, celebrities, surfers, and millionaire chief executives on the hunt for a holiday bolthole.

But as the sun worshippers whoop it up along Wategos Beach on exclusive Marine Parade, where businessman Geoff Morgan’s holiday home recently sold for a record $22m to Melbourne-based Rip Curl founder Brian Singer after just five days on the market, builders and project managers say they now can’t keep up with the workload.

Leading business executives are competing to build the grandest holiday homes, demolishing 1960s-built Wategos Beach shacks and amassing more sites in the tiny suburb, in the lee of the Cape Byron Lighthouse.

JB Hi-Fi former chief executive Richard Uechtritz is demolishing at numbers 7 and 9 Brownell Drive, Wategos, to create a beachside mansion over his double block. While gym entrepreneur Adam Gilchrist, co-founder of F45 Training, one of the world’s fastest growing franchises, has just added to his Wategos holdings with the purchase of a second property at 7 Marine Parade. That’s on top of the $18.85m he paid for Sydney property developer Danny Goldberg’s former 11 Marine Parade mansion in 2019. Gilchrist has spent another $5m to $6m on the 11 Marine Parade renovation and reportedly regularly rejects offers of $100,000 a week to rent the place.

With just 84 plots Wategos punches above its weight in terms of high prices and the executive calibre of its owners.

But it is coming at cost with Byron Bay Shire mayor Simon Richardson saying the rent and price hikes are pushing locals out of the market.

“Real estate agents have seen nothing like this before, what we are seeing is social tension as people are being squeezed out. It can be negative — the community is getting overwhelmed.”

“It’s going gangbusters, prices are moving quickly, we are seeing five to 10 years of price growth in five to 10 months. It’s going nuts.”

Cr Richardson said at Mullumbimby a house recently sold for $400,000 more than expected while closer to Byron at Bangalow real estate prices have jumped 30 per cent in the past three months. On the rental side it was not uncommon for people to pay 12 months advance rent at a higher rental rate than the landlord requested just to secure a foothold in Byron.

At Wategos at 19 Brownell Drive a mansion is under construction while the owner of 1 Brownell Drive is about to lodge a new DA given the previous design foundered over height complaints.

Melbourne press baron Antony Catalano moved to Wategos in 2008, and owns a beach house and the famous Raes at Wategos beach hotel which is booked solid until November. Mr Catalano downplays the recent hype about the Hemsworths and Matt Damon in Byron Bay. He reckons the first guests at Raes when it opened under former owner Vincent Rae was rock band Led Zeppelin. Celebrities such as Keith Richards and Elle Macpherson have also been star guests of the boutique accommodation.

The entrepreneurial Mr Catalano, who has just launched a boat hire company, Sea Raes, offering charters along the east coast, says there is no doubt there will be a lot of building activity at Wategos over the next year, but he says the work will be at the opposite end of the beach from Raes at Wategos.

“There is certainly going to be lots of heavy machinery at the end of the street,” Mr Catalano said.

“It is indisputable that people are building bigger and better homes and it’s becoming harder and harder to get into Wategos,” he says.

“The attraction of Wategos is that it is one of the few north-facing beaches in Australia and it is an incredible amphitheatre. It is really a supply and demand issue in what has always been a much-loved beach,” Mr Catalano says.

Access to the Ballina and Gold Coast airports also helps Byron’s popularity. “If you look at any of the places that have taken off in Australia they all have an airport nearby,” says Mr Catalano.

“The beauty of Byron is that it has two airports, either 25 minutes to Ballina or 45 minutes to the Gold Coast. It’s easy.”

Qantas and Jetstar have added thousands of extra seats to Ballina over the holiday season given the surge in customers travelling to Byron and its surrounding regions. The airlines are operating 40 return services a week or 5700 seats in each direction. Qantas launched flights to Ballina last July for the first time in 15 years, with seven flights a week quickly growing to up to 20 per week.

“Our Byron Bay flights have been consistently one of the strongest performers since July last year,” a Qantas spokesman said, adding that Qantas and Jetstar were now offering more seats to Byron Bay than before COVID-19.

Local construction workers can’t keep up with the demand for luxury houses and one local builder tells The Weekend Australian he estimates there will be up to nine luxury residential construction jobs in the tiny Wategos enclave this year alone.

“That is just in Wategos, that’s what I am hearing, there is a lot going on more than usual,” says the construction boss.

A local bricklayer said he was getting so much work in Byron he was forced to return to work earlier than usual on January 4.

“I can’t keep up with the workload,” he says.

Lisa Allen
Lisa AllenAssociate Editor & Editor, Mansion Australia

Lisa Allen is an Associate Editor of The Australian, and is Editor of The Weekend Australian's property magazine, Mansion Australia. Lisa has been a senior reporter in business and property with the paper since 2012. She was previously Queensland Bureau Chief for The Australian Financial Review and has written for the BRW Rich List.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/booming-byron-pushes-locals-out-of-market/news-story/cc0531c67dae419b0106d6b24b78572a