The Sell: Cricket star Steve Smith’s property empire expanding
Steve Smith is looking for new tenants in an incredible Balmain East property with his ever expanding property portfolio proving increasingly lucrative.
NSW
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Cricket champion and property landlord Steve Smith is set for a handsome increase as he seeks tenants for his striking Balmain East residential investment.
But it will not have been quite the windfall for which his leasing agent had hoped.
The initial recent $2800 a week asking rental would have netted Smith an increase of $600 a week – some $31,000 up on its last known asking rental.
However its been revised back to $2500 a week by Bentley Estate Agents, so only a $15,600 annual gain from its last advertised $2200 a week when vacant at the end of 2020.
Smith paid $2m in 2015 before knocking down the former cottage to create the designer home, which has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a kitchen with Euro appliances and an induction cooktop.
The ground floor living spaces open to a landscaped barbecue courtyard.
Upstairs there are Harbour Bridge views from a terrace, which meets another living area. It was the Test star’s first buy on the Balmain Peninsula.
The Daily Telegraph reported midweek that Sydney has more than 500 properties currently available for long-term lease with rent of more than $2000 per week, which was double the number of properties listed for under $300.
And Balmain East featured in the top five suburbs with rising median rents, according to a recent PropTrack report.
Balmain East was up $375 a week to a median $1400 a week.
Clovelly, where new $1955 a week tenants were being squeezed for $633 more than rentals a year ago, topped the list.
It was followed by Rose Bay ($2000 up $600), Middle Cove ($1700 up $525), and Riverview ($1450 up $400).
Smith’s proposed revised 13 per cent rise, of $300 a week, is nowhere as dramatic as some rent rises, and in fact the cricketer had a $2250 a week asking rentals back in 2018 when it was first up for rent after its rebuild.
There are many landlords in a similar situation of only just making up the declines that came about in the early days of the pandemic when tenants made an exodus from inner city rental markets.
Smith and wife Danielle, who sold their own home in Vaucluse for $12.38m last year after undertaking a full designer renovation, own other property investments on the Balmain peninsula.
He also quietly bought a 1900s home in Bronte for $3.505m in 2019, and, according to Waverley Council documents, has commissioned an extensive remodel which included adding a garage, a second level, and a pool and cabana at the rear of the 330sq m block.
There has been recent television commentary box talk that the couple have also bought a pad in New York.
Centre settles in at Dolphin Street
Last weekend’s battle of Brisbane, the first in NRL history, saw the Dolphins go down at Suncorp. But on the property front, the newbies have been busy buying up given the recruitment of the many interstate players.
The latest NRL Dolphins buyer was former St George centre Euan Aitken, who made the move from East Corrimal, near Wollongong, spending $1.2m soon before the season kicked off.
The two-storey Newport house was bought with longtime partner Kirsty Costello, who he married late last year. She is the founder of Ramolli Lingerie.
The couple, who announced midweek they are expecting their first child, certainly picked up a lot more house for a little less outlay – a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 600sq m.
And no doubt the team are ribbing Aitken that he bought on Dolphin Street.
He had bought his first home in 2018, paying $925,000 for a three-bedroom
1960s-built home at East Corrimal. It has been sold for $1.235m.
The team buy-up has been around the Moreton Bay region, near Redcliffe, which is the Dolphins HQ. Former Sydneysider Mark Nicholls has bought with wife Perrie for only $810,000 at Scarborough.
The Brisbane-born Edrick Lee has spent $870,000 on a four-bedroom home with a pool in Mango Hill.
Former Storm star Jesse Bromwich has been the biggest spender with $1.625m on a six-bed home in Burpengary East, with wife Lezyola. The 2018-built home had sold only seven months earlier for $1.55m.
DESIGN WHERE STARS ALIGN
Night Sky, the Blackheath home built for late astronomer Basil Borun, has been listed for sale with $3 million to $3.3 million price guidance through Modern House agent Marcus Lloyd-Jones.
It won the Robin Boyd residential architecture prize in 2021 for Peter Stutchbury Architecture.
Borun, who was reliant on a wheelchair, could see the stars through a 3.5m by 2.5m elliptical skylight in its parabolic vaulted ceiling.
Project designer Fernanda Cabral and builder Mark Tan worked on its location to allow viewings of Borun’s favourite constellations in the Milky Way, including Pavo.
Taking three years to construct, the Blue Mountains house was built from reclaimed bricks.
It is off the grid with underground water storage tanks and solar panel roofing.
ANOTHER ROYAL REBUILD IN VICTORIA ST
Stylish Potts Point couple Maurice and Jessica Violani secured $6.275 million in the delayed settlement sale of their renovated Victoria St terrace.
The Vogue-featured home had been listed with $6 million hopes through TRG last spring.
Its listing followed a $1.9 million renovation after a $3.4 million purchase in 2019.
They had Tamsin Johnson execute their European-inspired vision for the house.
Maurice is founding partner of the Australian practice of OC & C Strategy Consultants while Jessica is head of softlines and media marketplaces at Amazon Australia.
They have now have another unrenovated Victoria St terrace project that cost $5.71 million.
It is directly across the street from the sold abode.
Architect Luigi Rosselli and Johnson have been commissioned for the transformation.
The property had previously traded in 1979 at $114,000.
It was, for a brief time, known as the headquarters of dotcom boom high-flyer Toast Media when it was the plaything of international entrepreneur Matthew Howison.
Victoria St’s latest listing is the former gallery space of Frank McDonald, the late art dealer.
There were five bidders at its 2002 auction with the buyer living further up Victoria St.
The strata duplex terrace had been bought for $80,000 back in 1973, with McDonald then selling off the lower portion in 1983 for $125,000.
It is being offered in one line.
$20M FOR LANDMARK
Bowral’s Milton Park Country House & Spa retreat has been sold for about $20m to the funds manager Salter Brothers.
It was the venue of the weddings in the 2021 Married At First Sight series.
The unconfirmed sale price was around the same which Yufan Australia, owned by Guangxun Fan, bought in 2014 from the Dobler family.
The Southern Highlands 44-room hotel is set in sprawling gardens dating to the 1910 construction by retailer Anthony Hordern of the original Edwardian Art Nouveau bungalow.
Milton Park was converted into a hotel in 1984.
Salter Brothers, which is headed by the Melbourne-based Paul Salter, own and operate 31 hotels with almost 5000 rooms, including the Intercontinental Rialto in Melbourne and the Spicers Sangoma in the Blue Mountains.
BANKER’S NEW BASE
Having returned to Australia to become Westpac’s new chief financial officer of consumer and business banking, Israel Santos and his wife, Rebecca, have spent $3.375m on the Newport home of Woollahra rug traders Robyn Cosgrove and husband Trevor.
The 1920s sandstone cottage, one of Newport’s original homes, initially had a guide of $3.6m in October last year, before it was progressively reduced to $3.2m.
After spending $2.6m in 2020, the Cosgroves undertook a renovation of the home, which was marketed as a “creative twist on coastal living with a colourful and nostalgic aesthetic that embraces the eclectic”.
It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fireplace in the living room, and a heated pool in the 615sq m gardens.
LJ Hooker Newport agents Gordon Spring and James Alegre secured the sale.
Santos has spent most of his banking career in the UK after attended the University of NSW in the early 1990s. He was most recently the finance director, consumer finance division, at Lloyds Banking Group.
SHIFTING UP A GEAR
Questa Capital tech entrepreneur Evan Balafas and interior designer wife Heidi have set the house price record in Queens Park, paying $8.7 million just seven doors along from where they previously resided.
Their new Denison St acquisition was completed in 2019 to a design by Hannah Tribe of Tribe Studio Architects.
It was a single-level Californian bungalow that has been altered and extended, creating a striking five-bedroom, four-bathroom home.
The new upper level is concealed and a new rear-lane garage with studio above was added.
The home sale recently topped the former Queens Park record, set in 2021 when a seven-bedroom York Rd home fetched $8 million.
The couple sold for $4.855 million.
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