Rich lister looks to double his money selling Wahroonga acreage for $9m

Amid patchy market conditions, there remain some impressive stories of multimillion-dollar property flips from those who need it least.

Take this week’s $12 million house sale in Double Bay owned by the investment company of dental entrepreneur David Penn.

The Double Bay house was bought three years ago for $7.75 million, and resold this week for $12 million.Credit: Domain

Penn purchased the house three years ago for $7.75 million and glamorously redecorated it, with handsome finishes throughout. He listed it with Sotheby’s Michael Pallier for $12 million, and it sold for the bullish asking price. Few careers offer a pay packet like that.

Such savvy flipping may have inspired the Penn’s Point Piper neighbour, former used-car dealer Tony Denny.

Tony Denny has traded in the used-car market to focus on property investment.Credit: Louise Kennerley

An almost one-hectare block with a rundown three-bedroom house in North Wahroonga, purchased in 2019 for $4.5 million, is now for sale for $9 million. The block still has the rundown house, but with approval for subdivision into three lots.

The property was part of an investment by Denny’s boutique development and lending business Central Real Capital, which has helpfully offered vendor finance to the buyer.

It is listed with DiJones’s Sam Outch and BlackDiamondz’s Eric Leung and comes as Domain figures show the median house price in Wahroonga has jumped 48 per cent in five years.

What is not for sale anymore is Denny’s Point Piper residence. This is the one he bought in 2020 for $19.5 million and quietly offered to buyers late last year with hopes of $50 million.

The three-bedroom house on 9782 square metres in North Wahroonga is for sale for $9 million.Credit: Domain

Despite an offer of $46 million to BlackDiamondz’ Monika Tu and Jad Khattar, Denny has opted not to sell it because he couldn’t find an apartment in Double Bay with good enough harbour views to replace it.

Denny, who founded the AAA Autos car dealership in Prague before he sold a majority stake for $320 million in 2014, is ranked on the AFR Rich List 200 with an estimated worth of $755 million.

Cash buyers

The free-standing villa in Woollahra sold for $17.5 million to cash buyer Jennifer Hershon.Credit: Domain

Jennifer Hershon, whose late husband Michael Hershon was the boss of bra business Berlei Hestia, settled on $17.5 million downsizer digs in Woollahra on Friday.

Jennifer Hershon is downsizing from her $30 million Bellevue Hill home.

It was a cash purchase by Hershon of the freestanding villa with showroom-style garaging for five cars and Will Dangar gardens after it was sold by Sotheby’s Clint Ballard on behalf of aged-care business couple Allan and Beverley Simpson.

Hershon is cashed up from the $30 million sale of her Bellevue Hill mansion last year, which was bought by another cash buyer Chuting Zhang.

Hershon did well from the sale of her Bellevue Hill home given it quadrupled in price in the 21 years she owned it. It last traded in 2002 for $7.15 million when sold by former Watch Gallery director Tony Koo.

Not Run of the Mill

Corporate heavy hitter and Sydney Rugby Union president Phil Garling and his wife, retired restaurateur Mary Garling, have put their Berry farm, Mill Run, up for sale, given downsizing plans locally.

Mill Run is a luxury residence on a 31-hectare farm with Charolais cattle.Credit: Domain

When Garling isn’t attending to his corporate duties, among them chair of Waste Services Group, Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group Holdings and renewable energy consortium ACEREZ, he is attending to his 31-hectare cattle farm near Seven Mile Beach.

The Garlings purchased the property as largely land and forest in 2013 for $925,000, and a decade ago built the six-bedroom homestead with a swimming pool, spa and 6000-bottle cellar.

It is listed with Belle Property’s Jane Zwar with an $8.5 million guide.

Meanwhile, up the hill in Robertson, the 44-hectare property Ridgeview has sold for $7.5 million to corporate interests linked to anaesthetist Joanne Momsen and Simon Cathcart, the co-founder and executive director of pay-tv operator Fetch TV.

Darren Dale, of Black Fella Films, is up-grading to a $5.3 million terrace.Credit: Belinda Rolland

Still with the film and television industry types, producers Darren Dale, of Blackfella Films, and Alastair McKinnon, of Matchbox Pictures, have purchased a grand Victorian terrace in Surry Hills for $5.3 million.

It was an off-market purchase from medico Dick Quan, who in turn purchased it in 1995 for $455,000 from the late editorial cartoonist Bill Leak.

High-roller hopes

The Kirribilli apartment owned by Chinese film and television star “Rebecca” Wang Yan and her high-roller real estate tycoon husband Wang Zhicai is back up for grabs for $3 million after it failed to sell two years ago with a $3.1 million guide.

The Craiglea apartment in Kirribilli returns to the market after it failed to sell in 2022 for $3.1 million.Credit: Domain

The Wangs are not familiar names in Sydney but have long been high-profile figures in China: she for her high-profile film career, and he for his status as one of China’s early billionaires to cash in on the real estate redevelopment market in Beijing in the 1990s.

Rebecca Wang Yan married real estate tycoon Wang Zhicai in 1997 when she was aged 23.Credit:

The couple married in 1997 when she was 23 and riding high on the success of her part in the television series My Fair Princess II.

The year they married, they purchased a three-bedroom apartment new in the Dr Stanley Quek-developed Craiglea building at Kirribilli for $755,000, but they reportedly returned to live in Beijing soon after.

Wang previously listed the apartment in 2022 for $3.1 million, but it never sold. Not helping the campaign at the time were capital works in the building set at $2500 a quarter.

Milson Real Estate’s Phil Bell said the capital works are nearing completion. The property goes to auction on June 15.