When I originally purchased this property, it was the home of “North Coast Boating Centre” - a business I owned with my parents. Having experienced considerable success in the property market myself, I had the means to help save my dad from the daily torture of doing the daily commute on the Bruce Highway to Brisbane in his role as Queensland State Manager of an Abrasives company. 

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He was a waterman and multiple national champion sailor so it looked the perfect outlet for the salt in his veins, though it was selling ‘stink-boats’ as he called them rather than his wind powered preference. 

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We purchased the business from the property owners on a lease back with an option to purchase should they ever wish to sell, which they assured me they never would. About 18 months later I got the call and had 48 hours to decide, at $700,000 I thought it was a little expensive compared to our rent, but the ability to own our own space was too attractive and I hastily arrange some finance.

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The 1200m2 site over two titles was fully enclosed for our outdoor boat yard with rear canal frontage - ideal for our on-site 130m2 service workshop, while the 300m2 chandlery had great exposure from the busy Brisbane Road at front. A 3-bed unit upstairs for my folks to live on-site completed the almost 900m2 building. 

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We traded from the site before eventually selling the business when dad was ready to retire after my mum suffered the first of many strokes that would ultimately take her from us. 

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The new business owners traded from the site before relocating in their own time (at our suggestion) to a larger yard down on the Nicklin Way where the business still is. This allowed us to re-purpose the property into higher yielding retail downstairs while converting the unit to an office that we worked from for several years. While designing for smaller tenants, Jetts Fitness who I had helped find other sites wanted a showpiece gym for their new format 24 hr gym model, a craze that has since swept the country. As such they eventually took the entire ground floor and tripling the rent in the meantime. The site has since been sold and has a current valuation of just on $3,000,000.