Losing on real estate just doesn’t seem the Australian way. Real estate is the plot driver of millions of stories about personal wealth.

I lost on real estate once. There, I said it. I feel liberated. It was only $20,000 and it was back in the 1990s and I only think about it once a week or so now.

For years it felt like I was the only person in Brisbane to lose on the property wheel but of course that’s not true, especially now.

But imagine if your property value plunged by $20 million or more?

When the apparent loss is that high … well, that is a conversation worth having and it’s one that has been doing the rounds of Sunshine Coast dinner parties for years.

It’s about a mansion, its owner and $23 million in value that seems to have evaporated.

It’s all a bit of a mystery and the former owner lives overseas and has never bothered to explain himself, which is why there are so many rumours swirling about it.

The fact that it has happened in a suburb where at one point during COVID-19 you could have waved a photo of dog kennel in front of a Victorian and sold it – for a million – just adds to the local wonderment.

It’s a massive house, too, sitting on top of a hill over three titles in leafy Buderim, looking north to Coolum.

There are nine bedrooms and a garage for every bedroom. From all reports, it has a nuclear fallout shelter and a massive wine cellar, which I think would be confusing if the bomb was dropped. Which one would you go to?

But it’s not pretty. It’s a concrete monolith, really, and age and abandonment has wearied it. But when it was built it was considered Queensland’s most expensive house.

At one time it was on the market for $28 million, decent coin in 2008. And it has been sitting vacant for years, adding to the cost of lost opportunity. In later years real estate gossip suggests it was on the market for $14 million.

It caused all sorts of ruckus from locals when it was built.

Court action followed.

The money apparently came from a US tech guru who made it big when gambling and apps were being combined. It has been widely reported the owner was Ron Miller.

There are a lot of stories about what happened next. Some say it was divorce, others that the constant legal fights disillusioned him.

Did I mention the maid’s residence? That’s what it is called by locals. Others would call it a family home. It sits on the block below (of course) and has been vacant for many years.

But that’s not all.

Between the mansion and the maid’s quarters is a huge slab of land that is now being prepared for another two houses.

Massive equipment was brought in to chip away at the huge volcanic boulders that are common around Buderim. It took weeks.

The original mansion that still sits there was built over three titles and an application is now with council to split it up again.

So that’s a potential six dwellings and according to property records the site sold for $5 million, which is $23 million below that 2008 asking price and $9 million below what the gossip suggested it was going for about 10 years ago.

This in a suburb where the median house price is $1.1 million.

I think the new owners should call it Enigma House.

This article first appeared in InQueensland. Read the original here.