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Living your Luxe Life on the Sunshine Coast.
We have conversations with people who have found “home” on the Sunshine Coast & explore how they connect home with lifestyle & community.
As Property Buyers Agent we also discuss the macro economic factors impacting economic growth & property growth & where we are in the property cycle.
We overlay local market nuances of different sub markets from Noosa Heads to Maroochydore, to the Hinterland.
I hope you enjoy the series Living Your Luxe Life.
Hi. I'm Christine Mount from Luxe Coastal Property Buyers. I love doing podcasts with clients and also our referral partners on how they're living their Luxe life. Today, my special guest today is Shona from The Expatriate. Welcome Shona.
Speaker 2:Hey Christine, thank you for having me along. Thank you
Speaker 1:for coming. We speak a lot about business helping expats with their mortgage and finances. But today I wanted to get to know a little bit more about yourself and Adam. Like you have, you know, based yourselves in Hong Kong, you travel to Singapore, Dubai, you're helping expats more around the world. You could live anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1:So why did you choose Pruigian Beach And why did you choose the Sunshine Coast? Okay. So originally from Sydney.
Speaker 2:Most of the Sunshine Coast is originally from Sydney or Melbourne. Right? Yeah. So Adam and I, just pre COVID, we wanted to buy in Pruigian Beach. And we're trying to get something with a view or, you know, oceanfront as everyone wants to do or beachfront.
Speaker 2:And the finances didn't work for us at the time. And the reason why we like Phrygian Beach is because when you sit on the beach, you've got these beautiful sand dunes, you've got these main roads and you can't see a like a high rise or a building there. So it felt like you were part of a national park. Yeah. And and it was secluded.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't feel like it's overdeveloped. And obviously, they've got like a lot of rules that means that it can't be built out. Yeah. And that's what we liked about Pridgen Beach
Speaker 1:the most. Did you know Pridgen Beach in the Noosa Shire is actually a Unesco biosphere?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I did. There's a big sign as you drive in. But like this whole region is so well managed. In other words, I can tell that the Newsy Council really does care about like the the environmental aspect of of this region.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you can tell that it's it's not overrun. It's not gonna be over developed. Which is why I think the Sunshine Coast is more appealing to people like me because know people from Sydney either pick Sunshine Coast or Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast isn't as developed and the environment's better protected up here.
Speaker 1:So what I find and typically people who are really connected to outdoor activities, so they're not so into needing to go out in the evenings, lot of their social life is actually in the mornings walking on the beach, walking in the National Park. I can comfortably live in Prucine Beach because it's a village atmosphere. But if you wanna go out
Speaker 2:at nighttime We do walk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So from here, it's a 1.7 k walk Yeah. Into either the pub or, you know, the Thai restaurant or the captain's daughter fish and chips or the Mexican restaurant. Right? Yeah. And then quite often, I take off my high heels Yeah.
Speaker 2:Off of my wedges that I got on now. And then we walk home via the beach. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's really cool. And we do that in the evening of the day. So we might walk down here, set up an umbrella and go, oh, we're hungry for lunch. And then we walk down by the beach and then eat our lunch and then walk home.
Speaker 1:This is really, really interesting because we speak to people a lot. And we've had this conversation with expats who are in Switzerland. How far is too far to get your morning coffee in the morning? Well there. It's actually on the bed, so there we go.
Speaker 1:So how far is too
Speaker 2:far for
Speaker 1:your morning coffee? So I think it's all very individual, but I think what you do learn once you live here, 1.7 k's people either comfortably walk because it's so beautiful to do that. Yeah. Or they have those beautiful bikes that they ride along the beach with big fat tires and get down there in a few seconds. And then one of my other girlfriends in Parisian rides up to the surf club for dinner.
Speaker 2:Oh, seriously. Everyone's got those those motorbikes that aren't motorbikes yet. Yeah. Yeah. They're all around.
Speaker 2:No. There's super cool ways to get around this whole area because it is connected by bike paths and it's like if I want to get up to Hugh to Marcus Beach, Castaway, they've got this pathway all through the dunes. It's stunning. So you
Speaker 1:could have chosen another country but I think you've come back to your home country and said where does lifestyle meet sort of like an expat lifestyle. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So how have you connected to community? Well number one it's easy. I live right next to a pathway here and so I was renovating the house and so I was doing a lot of painting and stuff myself. I had builders and chippies and tiles and stuff but I was still here managing every day and then I did a lot of the landscaping myself and everybody who walked past wanted to have a chat. It's a very open, fun, happy community.
Speaker 2:I think everybody is happy here. They've gone how good is this? They've all chosen to live here. They're not grumpy and they understand that this is a really cool quality of life and it pays off.
Speaker 1:Do you know you've hit the nail on the head? Yeah. People will choose to live here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So it's not like a lot of there's a few people that have been lucky enough to be born here, but people are going where in the world do I want to live? Absolutely. And it's pretty hard place to beat.
Speaker 2:Well, to like, I'm as I said, I'm originally from Sydney. Yeah. So for me to get onto an international airport from here is an hour and fifteen minutes away, is Brisbane. Brisbane International Airport. So I can get there in an hour and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2:Like, I lived at Taramara in Sydney. Yep. Yep. If I want to get to an international airport from Taramara in Sydney, could be two hours. So do you get what I mean?
Speaker 2:So it's South East like, Sydney's side as a Melbourneite should think of South East Queensland as a whole. Not in other words, it's so big, like it's big, yes, but our roads are so good. So even if you're up at the Sunshine Coast, it doesn't mean that you're disconnected from a major city. You're actually on the outer suburbs of a major city. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1:a really interesting way to look at it. So you've touched on lifestyle, connecting to community and then connectivity to infrastructure so you can get to work easily. So whether you need to pop down to Sydney, Melbourne again, see your clients or whether you need to go to Hong Kong. I know you go to Hong Kong and Singapore a lot. We're very grateful to be
Speaker 2:on a bit with you there so that
Speaker 1:was fantastic. So if you had some tips on people about choosing a lifestyle location, they're an expat overseas yeah. And they're looking at either buying an investment property or a permanent home. Is there any tips from a personal perspective, not a mortgage broker perspective?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm lucky enough to have found this place. So I pitch views, number one. Yeah. Location, number two. The views are pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:Look, can literally do see whales out there. See that palm tree? I usually look towards that palm tree to see if there's any whales there this time of year. And there's one that And
Speaker 1:they haven't quite arrived yet, but they're about to. We did a whale welcoming ceremony on Neusson Main Beach on Friday night.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Indigenous, you know, welcoming Pepe from whale song. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing. There was one whale out here I called slappy because every afternoon he literally slapped his fin for like fifteen minutes as he He like went that way. It was but almost every night. So they are here.
Speaker 1:I can't remember my question about tipping, but let's talk about, it's actually relevant. Why did you choose this property in Crouchian Beach?
Speaker 2:Okay. So this is like one, you know, that number one, but secondly, this property was Airbnb approved. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's why I picked this one because I knew that the way that I live, I may be up here or maybe down in Brisbane, so therefore I had the opportunity to rent this out, short term rental, if I wasn't using it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great to have that flexibility and we do have this conversation a lot with expats because they like flexibility. What we're finding at the moment because it is very difficult to find a property with Airbnb approved.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:It is capped and there's a lot of legislation around that. So we help people navigate that through our town planner. But because there's an appetite for people to move up here for three, six or nine months, We find furnished properties also leased very well for nine months. So we've done a podcast with a property manager and sometimes they get an equivalent rental as if it's a vacant property or sometimes a little bit of a premium and they're not having that downtime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:So you've got the best of both worlds of flexibility but I'd say for people who can't find that, there are other options
Speaker 2:as Yeah, exactly. And there is, I think you can for ninety days, you can put it on Airbnb before Noosa Council starts asking a question. Yeah. And there are sort
Speaker 1:of rules around that as well-being like four times a year and although all those kind of things and when we come to selecting a property, always, we get Jack on the phone, Jack out.
Speaker 2:Jack out. He's amazing. It's always like ask an expert. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's it. Ask an expert. That's gonna be the topic
Speaker 1:of our next podcast, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So so thank
Speaker 1:you for sharing why you moved here on a personal basis. But let's go to stage two on our
Speaker 2:next upcoming podcast. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1:community of advisers to make the right property choices.
Speaker 2:Awesome. That sounds like a really good idea.