Techie Robin Khuda joins North Coast crush, buying $7m Byron Bay retreat

Tech entrepreneur Robin Khuda has shown a penchant for Mosman, Palm Beach, eastern suburbs and even Manly Beach real estate since the pandemic struck, so it should be no surprise to see his property portfolio has extended beyond Sydney to include the state’s hottest property market, Byron Bay.

The founder of AirTrunk has bought a coastal retreat in Lennox Head for $7 million, taking his property spree of the past year alone to more than $100 million worth of high-end real estate acquisitions.

The luxury property includes two residences. Each has a swimming pool surrounded by landscaped gardens and native bushland on 5.3 hectares with river frontage, boat ramp, fishing deck and DA-approval for seven eco-cabins.

Last year, the property was listed with a guide that started at $6.3 million and rose to $6.5 million but never sold. Nick Russo, of Ray White Byron Bay, launched it to the market again in March for $7.5 million, and it settled to Khuda’s Asia Digital Investments company in recent days.

Since June last year, Khuda’s property interests have emerged in Sydney’s most prestigious markets when he was revealed as the $6.1 million buyer of a McMahons Point apartment sold by Lady Bronagh Key, the wife of former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key.

Since then, Khuda has added three terraces in Paddington for a total of more than $9 million, two houses in Mosman for a total of $26 million and three properties in Palm Beach for more than $25 million.

Mr Khuda’s interests have diversified slightly more recently to include development opportunities, including two rundown blocks of apartments at Manly’s North Steyne for $18.2 million.

More recently, he bought into Crown Resorts’ Barangaroo tower, paying $10.7 million for an apartment on level 63.

In June, a townhouse in Woollahra purchased a year ago for $4.675 million was sold for $5.725 million, returning 22.5 per cent growth in the year.

Khuda’s personal wealth has soared in recent years on the back of his hyper-scale data centre operator AirTrunk, thanks in part to the surge in demand for cloud computing fuelled by the pandemic’s need for Zoom meetings.

Early last year, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets valued the company at $3 billion and bought an 88 per cent stake in it.