The Sell: How O’Neils found their ‘local weekender’ at Blueys Beach
Ned O’Neil and Deborah Symond O’Neil have secured their “local weekender” in a 64-lot housing subdivision launched by the veteran Addenbrooke development group at Blueys Beach.
NSW
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A 64-lot housing subdivision at the coastal village of Blueys Beach, in the Pacific Palms precinct on the NSW Mid-North Coast, has been launched by the veteran Addenbrooke development group.
No sooner had Addenbrooke managing director Ned O’Neil unveiled the approved project midweek than his wife, influencer Deborah Symond O’Neil, advised her 46,800 Instagram followers that she had secured “our local weekender”.
The 39ha former bushland farm site, three hours from Sydney, stretches from the village centre along a slim elevated urban fringe to the state-owned conservation area.
The Boomerang Drive lots, which range from 537sq m to 1022sq m, have been priced from $1.25m to $2.5m with no time limit to build and financing available through Sam Landis at Loan Market.
Some 16 lots have already been snapped up through CBRE and local agent Mark Lawson at the Lawson Property Agency. The O’Neil family is set to retain a 1069sq m block.
“We have fallen in love with the area,” Ned told the launch attendees.
“It took us years to find a site like this and we believe we have the best coastal development site in NSW.
“Blueys is what Byron Bay was 20 years ago but, unlike Byron, this will be the last land release in the area.”
The site, which cost $17.5m in 2021, had been scoped by Ned’s younger brother, Jake, on a surfing safari.
The tightly held village has seen just nine sales in the past year topped by a $3m house and $905,000 timber townhouse. Prices hit $6.55m when Blencathra by the Sea on Newman Ave sold in 2022.
The building block settlements are due in late 2025 or early 2026 once the civil works are completed. There are six preselected house builders with packages from $550,000, including Shed House Australia, plus pools from $50,000 from Plungie.
FISHER CANCELS AUCTION, REDUCES EXPECTATIONS
Hollywood star Isla Fisher pulled her Woollahra apartment from its scheduled weekend auction, and has dropped its price guidance.
The elevated rear position apartment on the Wallis and Ocean St corner hit the market with $1m hopes, but now the guidance is $900,000.
It is the only property in Sydney Fisher has ever had, bought when she was 20 and appearing on television screens as Shannon Reed at Summer Bay in the Channel 7 soapie Home & Away.
Her Capital Conveyancing Services draft contract on display at the bustling weekend open for inspection has her name redacted, such is her apparent status these days.
The Sell had previously documented her 1995 purchase of the two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the late Art Deco block Wiltshire Towers costing $171,500 through Gray & Mulroney Woollahra.
“With a New York-inspired feel, this immaculate Art Deco apartment offers the best of the East in location and lifestyle,” the marketing advises.
“Flooded with natural light, it blends serene park-side living with a cosmopolitan flair, all within a stone’s throw from Sydney’s most sought-after spots.
“Whether it’s a morning coffee at Woollahra Village or a shopping spree at Bondi Junction, you’ll enjoy the perfect balance of nature and city life.”
The last two-bedroom, one-bathroom unit that sold in the block fetched $1.1m in February through JT Allen Real Estate.
PropTrack calculates the two-bedroom apartment median price sits at $1,351,000, up 10 per cent after 60 sales over the past year.
The median time on market is 47 days.
The overall apartment median sits at $1,352,000, renting out for $850 a week and reflecting a 3.6 per cent rental yield.
Fisher, who has appeared in The Great Gatsby and Wedding Crashers, has had it as a rental investment property.
It was most recently publicly listed for rent at $400 a week in February 2021, having been slashed from its $680 a week in 2018 given the extended Covid pandemic hit on the rental market. But the apartment now comes with a forecast estimated rental return of $820 by Judstine Kidnie at the JKAgency.
Fisher’s listing comes after she and actor husband Sacha Baron Cohen announced they had split last year.
They wed in 2010 and, with their three children, called the Hollywood Hills home.
They own a seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom home in Laurel Canyon, which Fisher and Baron Cohen bought after growing tired of tourists and the paparazzi regularly being parked outside their former home closer to town.
Fisher once expressed she had “a secret fantasy” of moving to Byron Bay.
FAMOUS FLIPPERS MATTERS, ODDI HIT WITH $275K LOSS
The loss taken by go-to Sydney interior designer Chloe Matters and her former husband, top inner west estate agent Adrian Oddi, has emerged as $275,000 for their Bondi Beach matrimonial abode.
Matters and Oddi had bought the three-bedroom cottage for $7.85m in September 2021.
They took a hit with its recent settlement showing up at $7,575,000, selling via Maclay Longhurst and James Ball of Sotheby’s.
The freestanding home came with plans for a five-bedroom, five-bathroom designer residence with wellness centre and pool.
No sign yet if the buyers, Carmen Bekker from KPMG and Lachlan Johnston, a former Daily Telegraph cadet turned crisis corporate affairs adviser, will proceed with the works. They resided across the avenue, selling recently for $4.25m after $298,000 renovations.
Matters had enjoyed good fortune in 2021 after her transformation of their Bondi semi, bought for $2.7m in 2019 and then sold by the couple for $6,225,000 in October 2021 after a renovation costing $750,000.
After that stunning success, Matters told the now-shuttered Inside Out magazine that successful flips required “laser-like focus” on implementing proven design and construction strategies to get the best result. But she was premonitory when warning the 2023 market was undergoing a change after “extreme property price increases” with “building costs up insanely”.
“The thing is, you have to be able to hold the property long-term if the market tanks and you can’t sell it; ask yourself if you can hold it and, if so, for how long,” Matters advised.
Oddi, who has sold 77 properties at a $2.71m median on realestate.com.au in the past year, was spotted recently on social media at Club 55 Saint-Tropez in the south of France. He was holidaying over the winter break with Alex Phillips, Mitch Lambert and the Los Angeles-based Ivan Bresic, who has become a marriage celebrant in between coaching needy estate agents back home.
TERRIGAL PENTHOUSE SELLS EARLY FOR $8.5M
Developer Tony Denny has secured $8.5m for his penthouse in his Elysium, Terrigal, project.
The Central Coast penthouse was snapped up well ahead of its scheduled October 12 auction through Mat Steinwede and Jordan Bulmer of McGrath.
Their published official guidance had been $8m.
Spanning 432sq m, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom Terrigal Drive penthouse is atop the last apartment complex undertaken in 2019 at the original Terrigal Country Club site by Denny’s Central Real Capital boutique development company. It comes with a private lift from its six-car garaging.
Its sale follows this month’s $7.8m Aria penthouse sale through Tim Andrews at LJ Hooker. Terrigal’s record had hit $6m earlier this year at 20 Terrigal Esplanade and, before that, $5.5m on Barnhill Rd in 2021.
With a $790m empire, the used car dealer turned developer sits in 185th place on the most recent publication of The List – Australia’s Richest 250, compiled by journalist John Stensholt at The Australian.
He made his fortune with his Prague-based AAA Auto group of car dealerships around Eastern Europe, most of which was sold to Polish private equity group Arbis Capital Partners for about $320m in 2014.
There has been talk that he might be looking to swap the Terrigal pad for a Bondi one.
His off-market attempt to sell his Point Piper house for about $50m appears to have had overly ambitious hopes.
TOP AGENT PICKS UP $9M AND CHANGE
Luke Moroney, who heads the Search Party Property buyers’ agency, secured $9.2 million for his Bondi Beach apartment at its weekend auction.
The guidance had been $8 million, which was upped to $8.5 million by James Ledgerwood of McGrath.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom corner apartment with sand and surf panoramas from floor to ceiling glass windows attracted just the two bidders.
There were two others that did not participate after the opening $8.2 million bid. The underbidder resided elsewhere in the Pacific complex.
Spanning 204sq m, the apartment, which also features a study and side-by-side car spaces with storage lockers, was last sold in 2018 for $5.9 million by the Tzaneros clan.
Moroney, a real estate investor coach with 27 properties in his portfolio, has been listed as Australia’s No.1 buyers’ agent in a posting on an international website, ranked ahead of Cate Bakos, Phillip Almeida, Lloyd Edge, Frank Valentic, Hunter James and Paul Glossop.
No word of Luxe Listings Sydney cast member Simon Cohen, who was given that mantle by his local paper.
AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE?
The weekend auction listing at 2 Myee Ave, Strathfield, was advised midweek as having gone under offer at $8,000,888.
It had been listed with a $6.8 million guide through McGrath agents Tarun Sethi and Patrick Heng.
The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom abode on 765sq m, billed as a modern art deco designer home by Madebylas Design, secured 8200 page views on realestate.com.au.
BANKING ON TROPHY HOME
A classic 1970s Cronulla trophy home has been listed for sale through local agents Melissa Hatheier and Matthew Callaghan.
The 58 Glaisher Pde waterfront reserve residence was built by Hubert and Helen Pienz utilising many pieces from the 1880s bank on the corner of King and George streets.
It first sold for $500,000 in 1985, having been featured in the Australian Women’s Weekly.
SALE NOW IN THE HISTORY BOOKS
Cultural historian Warren Fahey and his husband, designer Mark Cavanagh, have secured the auction eve sale of the Manar, Potts Point home.
Listed with a $4.5 million guide, it fetched $4,915,000.
The couple renovated the 1930s top floor, two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for $1.05 million in 2002.
The 126sq m Macleay St abode has been bought by a retired Boral/BHP executive.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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