The Sell: Bikini model Casey James bags a bargain unit at Bondi Beach
The Sell: Bikini model Casey James has splashed out on her first home — an art deco unit at Bondi Beach — and she nabbed herself a great deal, writes real estate insider Jonathan Chancellor.
NSW
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“Winter swims are my favourite,” bikini model Casey James advised her 216,000 Instagram followers during the week.
Some 36,000 quickly liked the social media posting which came with a selfie set on Mona Vale beach during what’s seemingly been an unseasonably sunny July.
But it looks like the 22-year-old northern beaches-loving model will soon be hitting Bondi Beach a bit more as she has splashed out on her first home.
The model, who is with the Chic Management agency and has done fashion shoots for Lorna James and Cotton On, spent $1.025 million on an two-bedroom, one-bathroom art deco apartment.
Located just around the corner from Seven Ways’ newly rejuvenated boutique retail precinct, the unit is on the top floor of a 1930s block of eight.
The 65sqm apartment comes with high ornate ceilings, decorative joinery and polished floorboards, with a sunny window seat.
It comes with luxurious bathroom with Kaldewei bath amid honed marble hexagon mosaic tiles.
It last traded at $925,000 in 2015, reflecting just an ordinary 2 per cent annual appreciation rate achieved through the Phillips Pantzer Donnelley agency.
Bondi Beach currently has 42 properties for sale. There are also 226 properties for rent, as the Airbnb COVID-19 crisis is still creating income distress for some landlords.
There were 277 rental properties available in early April, and 337 by late April.
Based on a moving five years of sales, Bondi Beach had a bullish compound price growth in of 7.9 per cent for units, according to realestate.com.au in late March. That is down to 6.5 per cent.
The median two-bedroom price sits at $1,215,000.
Some 160 units sold last year, which was down on 2018 when 170 units sold. The busiest years of 2012 to 2014 saw turnover just short of 300 sales.
It appears the Avalon-based James bought especially well, and at under-vendor expectations, as she had a smart property adviser guide her through the recent post-auction negotiations.
Her boyfriend is Warren Ginsberg, the Ray White Double Bay associate director who is ranked the Ray White network’s second highest salesperson in NSW.
SNAPPY SALE BLOWS BAILEY AWAY
Wide Acre, the Southern Highlands retreat of celebrity hair stylist Joh Bailey and his professional equestrian partner Michael Christie, has found its next owner in just five days.
The 12ha High Range property attracted a bidding war between prospective buyers after Belle Property Bowral listing agent Di Dixon held 20 inspections in just four days.
“The phones were running hot from the second the property was listed,” Dixon said.
“I fielded over 140 email and phone call inquiries, some as far flung as Singapore.”
Dixon apparently secured around $3.5 million.
Bailey, who opened a salon in Bowral back in 2015, said the quick sale wasn’t foreseen.
“I was so thrilled with the five-day turnaround on the property,” Bailey told me.
“I really didn’t expect it in this climate.”
Dixon sold the property to Bailey four years ago.
“It was perfect for their horses and their lifestyle,” Dixon said, but now the couple were trading up for more space for themselves and for their 20 horses.
They bought it for $2.05 million in 2016, having previously had an estate at The Oaks.
The couple renovated every aspect at Wide Acre, with even the horses kept in designer digs.
They added a five-box stable barn, six paddocks and a round yard.
They had planned to get married at the property in mid-March, however had to cancel due to the announcement of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.
CROKE SELLS IN KINGS CROSSLAWYER
Michael Croke, sentenced mid-week to three years and nine months for perverting the course of justice, secured $1.95 million for his recently sold Kings Cross office.
Croke had sought $2.3 million for the Kellett St offering through Tristan Bassey and Nick Chalipilias at Ray White to fund his legal bills.
The court charges concerned a $700,000 bag of cash seized from a person staying in the Hilton Hotel in 2011.
Croke assisted a criminal group in their attempts to convince the police the money was from a legitimate source.
The two-level terrace had 170 sqm of space, with shelving full of Croke’s own case files.
TIME TRAVELLING WITH TRIBE STUDIO OFFERINGS
A Darlinghurst offering, a former 1930s Printers Lane electricity substation, was passed in on a $3.5 million vendor bid when auctioned yesterday through William Manning at McGrath Double Bay.
With a facade likened to the Tardis from the Dr Who television series, it had traded at $1.1 million in 2013 before its transformation into a three-level home on its 57sqm footprint by Tribe Studio.
It won the Greenway Award in the Australian Institute of Architects NSW Awards.
Meanwhile, the home known in rarefied architectural circles as House Eadie by Tribe Studio has been listed for sale.
It is a modernised heritage-listed Surry Hills 1890s workers’ cottage.
The six-month 2011 project was led by Hannah Tribe and Ricci Bloch.
The aim was a house that was at once toddler-friendly and also a great house for entertaining adults.
Set behind a wrought-iron picket fence, and under its Colorbond Surfmist roof, the 114sqm double-fronted home was bought for $770,000 in 2008 when dilapidated.
The price guide for the High Holburn St home is $1.85 million through Williams Phillips at BresicWhitney.
One architectural review suggested the house was “aggressively unpretentious”. But that doesn’t sound like an agent’s spiel.
The next Eadie House is set for Bundeena.