No takers for tainted duplex

POKIES and pub baron Bruce Mathieson was bargain-hunting at yesterday's auction of a beachfront duplex at the centre of a police probe.

POKIES and pub baron Bruce Mathieson was bargain-hunting at yesterday's auction of a beachfront duplex at the centre of a police probe into a property scheme that could stretch the length of millionaire's row on the Gold Coast.

The respected businessman offered the only bid in the forced sale of the recently built property in Albatross Avenue, Mermaid Beach, where he last year paid $18 million for a home that reportedly cost its previous owner $30m.

But the $2m Mr Mathieson offered for one of the split-level luxury homes was not accepted by the owner, real estate agent and developer Rod Lambert, who had set a reserve of $8m and $7m each on the two properties.

"It was a genuine offer. When people are being forced to sell they do things that they might not normally do, " Mr Mathieson told The Australian.

"In my experience, you make genuine money on entry, not exit and when the market is down."

In the past two years, the boom along Albatross and Hedges avenues - when properties appreciated by millions of dollars in a matter of months - has been replaced by a doomsday, with prices falling by as much as 50 per cent.

Mr Lambert, selling on the instructions of his lenders, said he was not surprised that the properties he redeveloped from a crumbling block of six units did not attract bids anywhere near the reserve among the 50 people who attended the auction.

He blamed revelations over the police investigation into an elaborate scheme he alleges led him to pay an inflated $10.5m for the property in 2008.

He said it had spooked potential buyers. "I expected this response, what has been alleged has certainly created a degree of caution out there," he said.

"But we have some interest and will wait and see."