A company whose sole shareholder is billionaire pokies king Len Ainsworth has swooped on a collection of new-build Brisbane apartments for a discount of about 15 per cent off their original price after the owners defaulted on their planned purchase.

Metro Property's Laguna and St Tropez apartment development in Newstead, Brisbane is just one of several developments where private investors are searching for bargain buys in a market where values have slumped.

Another is Consolidated Properties' high-rise Spire development in the Brisbane CBD where a private investor has snapped up 25 apartments at a discount of 20 per cent after the original buyers also defaulted on settlement. Most of the original off-the-plan buyers were Chinese investors.

Len Ainsworth is buying distressed apartments in Brisbane. Dominic Lorrimer

The deals, publicly available on land titles documents, point to a deterioration in the apartment market where last month it was revealed Brisbane's 92-storey Skytower had valuations ordered by banks showing drops of as much as 25 per cent. However, the deals also point to a potential recovery as private investors make the call to invest.

Mr Ainsworth, whose wealth was last estimated at more than $4 billion by The Australian Financial Review Rich List and is now 95 years old, is the sole director of a company called Ainsworth Pty Ltd, which purchased more than a dozen apartments in the development. Mr Ainsworth said such a deal was a "private matter".