Pat Rafter's former Sunshine Beach home sells for $17m

by

David Hales, a founder of Noosa-based chain Betty's Burgers, has taken a $3 million cut on the $20 million he hoped to get for the Sunshine Coast pile he acquired just two years ago from tennis player Pat Rafter.

Mr Hales and his wife, Louise, who acquired the seven-bedroom, five-bathroom house at Sunshine Beach for $15.2 million in January 2018, sold it for $17 million, Dowling Neylan agent Karen Harman confirmed.

"It's a fabulous property and the buyer and seller are very happy," Ms Harman said.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.946%2C$multiply_1.0106%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_51/t_crop_custom/e_sharpen:25%2Cq_42%2Cf_auto/c0649955267edc1f310f7fc09526078b9da824f8
Vendors David and Louise Hales sold the Seaview Terrace home for $17 million - $3 million below what they'd hoped to get.  Supplied

Mr Hales could not be contacted for comment. The identity of the buyer was not immediately clear.

The sale of the 46 Seaview Terrace property — which has proven hard to sell — raised the tension higher than normal in the already-competitive world of south-east Queensland prestige real estate.

When Mr Rafter and his wife, Lara, last tried to sell the oceanfront home on almost 1300sq m, it sat on the market for 580 days from its first listing in August 2016 until Mr and Mrs Hales completed the sale, records show.

Agent Tom Offermann, who sold the home to the Hales couple in 2018, secured the mandate to sell the property for them and ran a publicity campaign that received coverage in a range of media including GQ Magazine. This week Mr Offermann's website listing showed the property had sold for $17 million.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1.324%2C$multiply_0.7214%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_188/t_crop_custom/e_sharpen:25%2Cq_42%2Cf_auto/a78fc686a9a070f9ad10b231790f414fcf2e4ef9
The home on almost 1300sq m has a 28-metre beach frontage. 

By Wednesday morning, however, that listing had been taken down. Mr Offermann declined to comment when contacted on the listing, or on whether he had secured the sale.

Ms Harman said she had taken over the mandate to sell the property and sold it within one day.

"I can confirm that Tom Offermann previously had the listing of 46 Seaview Terrace for six months or so," she said. "I can confirm that I had the listing for one day before introducing the buyer."

The H-shaped house, designed by architect John Burgess, includes a 12-metre pool. It has garage space for three cars and off-street parking for three more.

Five of the seven bedrooms have underfloor heating. It has a home theatre, study, media room and wine room with a climate-controlled cellar. It also has an underground 100,000-litre rainwater tank.

Mr Hales founded Betty's Burgers with Nik Rollison and Michael Tripp in 2014. They subsequently sold the 1950s burger shack-themed business to food franchise business Retail Zoo. By July, there were 20 outlets nationally and in the run-up to an IPO that was subsequently pulled in October, Retail Zoo had visions of expanding to 100.