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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, connecting home, lifestyle, and community. At Luxe Coastal, as a buyer's agent, we understand the importance of connecting to community, and we love having conversations with women on how they connect to community in a lifestyle location. We explore what was front of mind for them when they relocated interstate, maybe even within their own suburb or 5 minutes down the road. Today, I have a very special guest, doctor Geneva Sportsman.
Speaker 1:Geneva, hello.
Speaker 2:Hi, Christine. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us. Geneva works at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, has 3 beautiful children and a husband who works remotely. We'll be discussing how she's connected to community through a series of conversations and questions. But firstly, thank you so much time for your time this morning.
Speaker 2:It's no problem. I'm I'm really, really happy that we got a chance to meet up and have this chat. You know,
Speaker 1:it's really good. I'll just give a backdrop to where we're sitting. We we're sitting in a rainforest. We are. A backdrop.
Speaker 2:It's raining.
Speaker 1:It is raining. We're sitting out on an outdoor deck, just a few minutes from Budram Village, where all the shops are, just a minute's drive from Woolies and also beautiful coffee shops like Montana's. But we're on acreage surrounded by rainforest. It even has its own little, rainfall down the back of the property. Waterfall.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It does. Waterfall. Yeah. That would be the right word for it.
Speaker 1:And we have dual occupancy on this property and also a beautiful home for your family. But before we get into why you landed in this beautiful place, this home, why did you move to the Sunshine Coast? Tell us your story. Well,
Speaker 2:we came from Sydney, and we originally looked at, before the kids started school, moving to the Sunshine Coast because I had a friend, a very dear friend who left the hospital that we both trained at and, came up to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital when it was pretty new. It hadn't really fully opened most of the areas of the hospital. And she said to me, Geneva, you should come up here. This is this great brand new hospital. And my eldest daughter at the time was only 5 and she hadn't started school yet.
Speaker 2:And we thought we should
Speaker 1:go and have a have
Speaker 2:a think about it. My husband's actually not from a city. He's from, a big a big town, I guess you could say, and he prefers, I think, not to be in the city. So we came up and had a look around, and this is, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, so a lot's changed since then here in the Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately, at that time, work didn't really eventuate for me, and so we took that as a sign that we were supposed to keep, keep on in Sydney.
Speaker 2:And we started the kids in school, and then COVID happened. And we went through about, you know, 2 years of intermittent lockdowns and working in the hospital system. And I think at the end of that time, we were really just quite tired. Yeah. We and we and we started reevaluating things.
Speaker 2:I think we reevaluated and we were looking at our family and thinking, you know, we are working a lot and other people are really raising our children. And I remember one morning, I had a particularly long night on call and I just said, I'm just so tired. And my husband said to me, what are we actually doing here? We could go anywhere. Right?
Speaker 2:You work in a hospital, and there's lots of those. And I just thought he is so right. So So what part of
Speaker 1:was that after the 2 years? Oh, that
Speaker 2:was after 2 years of COVID.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think we just thought like, the Sunshine Coast had just always been in the back of our minds as a place we were really drawn to. I don't know why. I never had lived here. I didn't have any relatives that were, living up here that we frequently visited, but it just felt like it was a place that really resonated with me and and with my husband. So, I guess because he'd worked remotely during COVID for 2 years, really, he approached his job and they said, you know, there's an airport in Murachidore.
Speaker 2:Brisbane's an hour down the road. If we need you to come into the office, you can either catch a flight or you can just go to the Brisbane office. That's fine. You can Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think you've just nailed a game changer, I think, for this region. Pre COVID, the opportunity to work remotely Mhmm. May not have even been considered. It was just a hard no.
Speaker 2:It was a hard no. Yeah. When we first looked at it, he was going to have to, you know, probably get a new job. And then when a job didn't really perfectly eventuate for me, we just thought, oh, that's just too much to uproot. 3 children with no job that I think that's really our kind of, sign from the universe.
Speaker 2:Like, no. This isn't what you're supposed to be doing. So
Speaker 1:That probably wasn't the right time for you. So and it's really interesting. When I ask people for their checklist if they are remote workers, you can hear the birds going in the background. It's just stunning. I wish people could see this.
Speaker 1:Maybe I should film these discussions. Yeah. So people can actually see what we can see. But I think on their checklist is within, like, an hour and a half's drive of an international airport, and Brisbane's an hour and 10 minutes away, roughly. And then you also have a domestic airport that can get you around Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And to New Zealand as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You can get to New Zealand. New Zealand.
Speaker 2:Yep. And Bali, maybe. I'm not sure about Bali.
Speaker 1:But I think that was they're hoping for that. But, but there's only, like, a 15 minute drive from where we're sitting is to get to, you know, a place of connectivity to get all around Australia.
Speaker 2:Yes. There's a 6 AM flight to Sydney Yeah. Most mornings, I think. So you can actually, you know, drive down from Richedor and get on a flight at 6 AM to and be in Sydney. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's not too bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So my next question is, that's Sunshine Coast lifestyle. Why Budram?
Speaker 2:Again, this friend of mine, who came up here, we I called her and I said, like, if we were gonna come to the Sunshine Coast and we just needed to kind of maybe just for the for an interim period base ourselves somewhere. What do you where do you think? And she said, look, we think Budram's pretty good. We don't live in Budram anymore, but it's pretty central. There's lots of good schools there, and the hospital's, you know, 15 minutes away if you're on call.
Speaker 2:And there's lots of, you know, smaller private hospitals, one actually in Budrom as well. And she said that's probably as good a place as any to start. And so we thought, okay. Well, that gives us a little bit of a starting point. Why don't we Well, you
Speaker 1:have to be within a half an hour drive to the hospital, don't you?
Speaker 2:Or Yes. So it's depending depending on your call requirement. Yeah. I'm an anesthetist, so we need to be actually pretty close. But Yeah.
Speaker 2:Bedroom's bedroom's within that
Speaker 1:20 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. And also the, in other podcasts,
Speaker 1:we've spoken
Speaker 2:about how the
Speaker 1:Marucci CBD and health pre precinct is growing. Like, they've just built another, private hospital in the Maroochydore CBD.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So it is an expanding field. Yeah. You know, the health health field.
Speaker 2:Yes. And that's about 10 minutes away, 15 minutes away from Budram. So close yeah. 10 minutes, I'd say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's very good. So and if we touched on schools, and this is a really important topic for people because I know some reservations of when people are moving, they're like, we don't know what the quality of schools are like. Yeah. So how have you found them?
Speaker 2:We've found the scores to be excellent. So when we were looking at Where to Live, it kind of felt like, Budram just had this natural pull for us. So, we put our kids' names down at a couple of schools around the area. But the the other thing I think that was really a major bonus for us about Budrom was that the public school's really very good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've subsequently found that I've I've never actually heard anybody say, oh, I wouldn't put my kid in any public school on the Sunshine Coast really so far, but Budram had a very good the public school had a very good reputation. So we thought, okay, we'll, we'll put the kids' names down, and if we can find a rental property in the Budram area so that they can potentially go to the public school there if they don't get a spot. And that's actually what happened. 1 of our children, my our eldest daughter got a spot at Flinders, but the younger 2, there wasn't a spot for them to start. So we've actually had experience now with 2 schools in Bedroom, and they've both been phenomenal to be completely honest.
Speaker 2:We've been really, really happy. There's just, really both schools have great community vibe about them. Yeah. Education's been good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, we're not not really any complaints. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And how how long did it take the children to settle into their new schools? Because that's always a concern, isn't it? I I feel
Speaker 2:like the, Flinders did an awesome job with my eldest about making sure that she had kind of a social support before she even started school. Yep. With the other 2 going to the public school, I think, my youngest was right in there on the 2nd day and said she made best friends, and I think that wasn't really quite the case. But, I would say for my middle, my son, it took him I'd say probably
Speaker 1:2 weeks. Oh
Speaker 2:gosh. 2, 2, 3 weeks before he kind of felt like he had a place and he had some friends that he could play with, you know, that he knew. 2 weeks is very fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't it was look. There's a lot of kids. I mean, the school is massive, and there's new kids starting, it seems like, every term. Yeah. So let's talk through that
Speaker 1:because I think that's one dynamic on the coast. There is people are still moving up here from the cities. I mean, obviously, we had this huge wave during COVID and post COVID, but still migration from the southern states still exceeds pre COVID. So having new people come all the time Yeah. Actually makes it easier to connect to community because people are looking to connect.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Funnily enough, I thought maybe the locals, you know, people that have been here for a long time might feel a little bit like, you know, not more new people, but we really haven't found
Speaker 1:No. The locals have been embracing it. They had been very welcoming. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 1:And the ethnicities I think it's 2 pronged, isn't it? It's like the locals are very welcoming, and they sort of give you all the tips. Mhmm. And then you have another group of people who are a bit like, oh, I've just arrived, so let's sort of go out there and meet people. Whereas in the city, I think because you're busier
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You don't connect to new groups so easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do, I do think the coast is attracting a type of mindset. Like, you know, there's a lot of families coming and they I think they really have in common is that they've done the rat race in Melbourne or Sydney, and they really felt like they were, you know, kind of losing that contact with their family in a way, like, they they weren't, you know, sitting down to dinners, you know, at night and they were running all over, you know, after school taking them to here, there, and everywhere. And it really feels like, the way that it's set up here with the schools, a lot of the kids do their after school activities at the school, so there's not this constant running here, there, and everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just slowed down, people are appreciating, you know, spending time and connecting with their families. The neighborhoods are amazing. We lived in 2 neighborhoods in Buderim, and the kids play together on the street, and they go in between houses on the weekends, and it's wonderful. Let's talk about
Speaker 1:this because you've had 2 different experiences. Yeah. Your first home was on a slightly larger standard block, you know, like one and a half blocks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that was, you knew the neighbors there very well. You could walk to the IGA. You could walk to the village. So tell us about
Speaker 2:that beauty. When so when we came up here, we didn't know where we wanted to live. We knew we were gonna base ourselves out of Budram just because of, our daughter going to school. So we thought, right, we'll start there, but let's just rent, and then that'll give us a chance to kind of go around and see what's on offer. And we just got very, very well, I don't know if it's lucky.
Speaker 2:I actually wonder whether most streets in Budham might be this way. But we landed on a street and the neighbors were amazing. The kind of street where you'd go out the front and, you know, there'd be someone mowing their lawn, but then they'd stop what they're doing and come over and then say, oh, go and grab a beer and let's just you know have a chat on the street. It was amazing and so we thought I wonder if the owners want to sell this property to us. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we we tried that tactic, and unfortunately, the owners, I think they had it in their mind that this was gonna be their retirement, you know, home or they they just weren't they just weren't ready to sell.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, but maybe I think that was it wasn't meant to be for you. Like, I mean, and I think the owner hadn't owned that property for that long. No.
Speaker 2:They had.
Speaker 1:So I think they just recently, I think in the last 18 months purchased, so they probably had a long term view on that property. I wouldn't have let
Speaker 2:go of that house either if I owned it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But so that was, like, your dream home then when you first arrived?
Speaker 2:It just really worked well for our family. I mean, the fact that the neighbors were all so nice, and the kids loved it, and they were very close to the public school, and a 5 minute drive to the other school was perfect. Yep.
Speaker 1:Fast forward where you finally landed, which is like acreage with the rainforest Yeah. In another cul de sac Oh. And still very close to the village. It is. I know.
Speaker 2:I I think at least a couple of times a week, I actually like almost want to pinch myself and say is this real? Do we actually find this property? I mean, you know, we we, like with you, we looked at quite a lot of properties. Yes. And, and initially when I when we when we saw found this property, we weren't really looking for acreage.
Speaker 2:And my husband kind of said to me, this is really what we were looking for. And I said, well, let's just go look. It looks amazing. And it's got a, you know, it's got a, like, room for our family to come and visit or friends to come. There's
Speaker 1:a beautiful separate geol occupancy, which is very modern.
Speaker 2:And then, you know the day that we turned up the first open house it was a gorgeous day and had been raining I think in Budram for you know a week prior and we turned up on this beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was out, the birds were out, and there were 60 families coming through the house. And I remember looking at you, Christine, and thinking, wow.
Speaker 1:And it was it was the first open.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 1:And it there's a lot of interest. That's a lot. What I can remember, and I was just mentioning this to you a moment ago, is when we come through properties, I actually watch how you respond to the property. And I can just remember these watch walking on the grass. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, you know, it's the huge landscape lawn before the rainforest, and I just thought, no. I think this could be home.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like, it just felt magical to me. I mean, you know, you like, when you're in the kitchen or when you're on the deck and you look out, all you can really see are are palm trees and on one side of the property, on the other side of the property is eucalyptus and we see, you know, kookaburras and all kinds of wildlife. It's been amazing. But it but and our neighbors are actually not that far from us, but you can't see them and you really can't feel them. Yep.
Speaker 2:You can't see them
Speaker 1:at all sitting on here on this deck. No. And they are very close behind. Yes. Have you got to know the neighbors in the cul de sac?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Our, the neighbors that's closest to us, they come over for Sunday dinner, like, maybe every 3 weeks or invite us over. Their daughter's always coming over and swimming in the pool with our kids. Yeah. And I've started calling her my 4th child.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And yeah. And then it's just been really good. We've got somebody that on the other side of them, they're botanists and they have bees, and they have honey for sale. The kids go down there and buy honey, and
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been amazing. Yeah. Love love this.
Speaker 1:Ridiculously idyllic. It's been really, really good. Yeah. But I think and it's just giving me goosebumps about to say it is that when you find the right right home, it's like connecting to the land and to that space. And I think people can every it's natural.
Speaker 1:Everyone does it. You have a preconceived idea that you want, but sometimes, you know, we've got a poke and prod lifestyle, but sometimes you also just know. And I I know when you thought through this, you had to think through how will your lifestyle work on acreage versus the other kind of properties that we were looking at. Yeah. And you you really thought that through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I and I think still we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. I I think, fortunately for us, 2 thirds of this property is not landscape, so it's just native bush, which seems like, oh, you know, I mean, that's great because, you know, there's no one really close in our proximity, but the other thing that works to our advantage in that way is the the maintenance because even on the landscape bit, the number of palm fronds that come down is a trip, you know Yeah. Down to the dump to get rid of, like, all these palm fronds, and there's a lot of, you know, lawn that needs to be mowed. And I think it's something that when you come from the city, you don't really realize that in a place like Budrom where it's, it rains quite a bit and then it's sunny for the rest of the day, the plants here grow amazingly. But the weeds also grow, and he's new.
Speaker 2:So you must stay on top of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then the grass grows so far. So let's talk about your little it's not a ride on mower. So let's talk about that. It's out on the grass at the moment.
Speaker 2:We have a Roomba for the grass. Yeah. We have a little, robot mower that goes out literally all day every day and just snips a tiny bit off the top of the grass, in a random fashion and keeps the grass looking nice without having to actually get on because we've got hills. So ride on mower could get a little bit, especially when the grass is slippery from with rain could be a little bit, dangerous. And I think you'd have to do you'd have to get on the ride on mower probably every 4th day in the summertime.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Whereas I hear that every 4th day. Yes. It's not every 2 weeks. It's like you you definitely on.
Speaker 2:At least I would say, like, I would say to keep it looking really nice and, you know, you wanna keep the grass short because of, you know, you don't know you don't want your kids going through long grass. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This is the reality. We do have snakes. Yeah. There's snakes. Gotta keep it down.
Speaker 2:We've seen a few.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They haven't bothered us. We had we had, a coastal carpet python in the roof over there, but it's gone. And I think it's because of the dogs to be honest. I think that's what happened. It was living here, and then it was here when we first moved in.
Speaker 2:And then I haven't really seen it after about a month of us being here, so I think it's moved on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, it's good to have dogs then. They're good good dogs. Just make sure they're a bit
Speaker 2:bigger because, we've got one little dog, but probably could be quite a tasty treat if you got the bigger one, wasn't
Speaker 1:this my dog would be a tasty treat. So we've chosen about why you chose this home. It's really a connection to the land. Yeah. I think our listeners would also like to know what are the hidden gems of Budrom?
Speaker 1:What what surprised you about this?
Speaker 2:Look, I actually it sounds strange. A lot of people coming to the coast don't know anything about Budrom, but I would actually say Budrom is the hidden gem, because it's 12 minutes, you know, to Alexandra, it's 12 minutes to Mooloolaba Beach, but we don't see a lot of, tourist traffic coming through Budrom. You know, people, seem to come with an express intent to come to Budrom, you know, because they live up here or, you know, they're taking their kids to school. But, it really has that community vibe. It also feels very, like you said, rainforesty because it is and it's got its own little kind of microclimate up here.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit cooler, than right down, at the beach. Yeah. I think Budram is the gem, really. I I think we just made a we just got very lucky.
Speaker 1:So that I mean and you're just walking 12 minutes from here and 12 minutes to the no, to the beach. If you're 12 minutes in the city, you still might be in your same suburb, do you know, mate? Like, you're you're still just caught caught in traffic. So the traffic does flow. So in your 12 minutes, you know, you can actually move around.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Let's talk about restaurants for one moment. Do you do you have any restaurants that you like? Yeah. We've got Dee Dan.
Speaker 2:Oh, Dee Dan's amazing. It's so good. Yeah. There's actually quite a few restaurants, on the coast that we, like, right up and down. Our friends, my friend that I keep talking about referring back to took us to Cafe Sicily, down at Golden Beach.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. That's so good. It's Italian and it's just it's got this wonderful, like, kind of pastry shop at the front and at the back at night, they have dinner and it's really really good. Yeah. There's so many restaurants.
Speaker 2:We've been out to, I'm just trying to think of the name of the restaurant up at up your way. I'll Think of it in a minute. You know, we've we've
Speaker 1:had some Hot Spices?
Speaker 2:No. It's it's, over where some young guys used to be. Oh. Oh, yes. What is it called?
Speaker 2:I'll think of it Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. In a
Speaker 2:minute. Yeah. It's it's such a good it's such good food. In Sunshine Beach?
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Sunshine Beach is actually evolving as well.
Speaker 1:I was in different restaurants are coming and going at the moment. Yeah. But there's another one there called Humble on Duke.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the one I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1:Oh, is
Speaker 2:it? It is so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not yeah. It's in that area where a southern guy's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That one that you have to book usually about 2 months out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they let you go and they remember you from the last time you were there. They know your wine preference. Yeah. I mean, they're amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wonder if we should go there one time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Should we?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just some mutual friends have got living up here there.
Speaker 2:Yes. We should.
Speaker 1:We should. Should be. Yeah. Not to name names if you know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, well, I'd
Speaker 1:probably ask you, you know, the whole journey of moving interstate, there's probably fears and unknowns. Was there anything that that that you sort of worked through that surprise when you got here, it was actually was a nonevent?
Speaker 2:Well, so look, I've moved, internationally and, you know, a couple of times. And I actually think moving when you move with your family is actually the least scary because you've got your own little set like nucleus. Right? If everything else goes wrong, I've got my family here and there's always someone I'm coming home to and saying like I had a really bad day today. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't really that scary. I think we were really hoping that this would be what we wanted it to be, which was just to get our family that time together, which it has been. I think the tip, that I would say look, I think it it worked out. We were very lucky in in the the neighborhood that we landed in. My tip would probably be I would definitely do it the same way again, and that I would come up here and live here for a bit before actually buying because there are so many different little pockets.
Speaker 2:There's beachside communities. There's, you know, the Budram community up here. There's just so many different areas with a different with different feel to it. And, you know, if you're somebody who likes to be in in amongst it with, you know, lots of different people coming in, their community is feeling really buzzy and you want, you know, 50 different places that you could potentially get coffee, then, you know, somewhere like Mooloolaba might be for you. And if you, you know, wanted a bit more laid back and, you know, kind of more organic, maybe buddram or even further out would be somewhere.
Speaker 2:But you have to come up, I think, and really, you know, you've got to base yourself somewhere, so maybe come up and rent for a bit if you can, and then, just take time and go to those communities
Speaker 1:and I think also, you mentioned before during that process of coming up, you weren't afraid to pivot if something didn't work. So you had an open mind. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We were definitely not, we didn't I think because, you know, with the school that, you know, Flinders is pretty central. So you there's, you know, lots of different areas that you could still if you if your child, you know, had, you know, a spot at a particular school, you can still move, like you said, the traffic flows. You don't need to live right there. We would have just as easily had we come up and found Budram wasn't really for us, we would have just as easily, you know, gone somewhere else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because
Speaker 1:you were considering coastal when you first
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think we were we were because we were when we were in Sydney, that's kind of, you know, we were at a beachside community there. And, you know, we we loved that as well. To be honest, I have to say I don't miss it.
Speaker 1:I I It's so funny. When I say coastal, it's only like 10 minutes downhill. That's true. Maybe 12 minutes.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel coastal up here. It really doesn't. It it doesn't you don't get, you know, you don't feel like you have that, like, you know, sort of salty ocean mist air. It's more rainforest.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Particularly sitting here. No. That's pretty wonderful.
Speaker 1:Can I just say thank you very much for sharing your story? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. It's I was really looking forward to this conversation today, and I'm sure it will give someone else a few little snippets and insights when they're thinking about moving, whether it's even within their same suburb, you know, sort of what you consider. And so, yeah, thank you No. For sharing.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. Okay. Thanks a lot. Bye.