The West Australian featured a story of two brothers who rode the wave of the Pilbara property boom to become multimillionaires but who are now facing a potential financial headache, with a bank foreclosing on part of their property portfolio after they allegedly failed to pay their mortgages.
At the height of the Pilbara property peak in 2012, rental prices in Port Hedland were nearing $2600 a week on average, while the median house price was upwards of $1.2 million, according to Pilbara Development Commission figures.
Property prices in Karratha and Port Hedland have fallen dramatically over the past five years, with Landgate records showing the Crawfords have sold property for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than the buying price.
Ryan and Morgan Crawford claimed to have made millions of dollars from investments in Pilbara towns when property and rent prices reached astronomical levels during the mining boom.
But in a spectacular example of the Pilbara property crash, part of the Crawford property empire has been sold for a fraction of the buying price, according to Landgate records, with documents filed in the Supreme Court last week revealing the proceeds fell well short of what was owed.
The ANZ Bank wants to repossess one property owned by Ryan Crawford, and has demanded the balance of the outstanding debt, plus interest and costs.
In total, the brothers and former colleague Mark Pages-Oliver borrowed more than $5.5 million from ANZ in four years.
Ryan Crawford, who described himself on social media as “an active entrepreneur” who rose “to the rank’s of the State’s 1 per cent” of personal property investors, at one time claimed to have a portfolio valued at $35 million.
