The Sell: Jarome Luai spends $1.55m on family home in South Penrith

NRL player Jarome Luai has bought his first home, with the premiership-winning five-eighth settling firmly into Panthers’ territory.

Jarome Luai, the Penrith Panthers premiership-winning five-eighth who is lining up for his sixth NSW Blues Origin game, has bought his first home.

Luai has spent more than $1.55m in South Penrith, a handy 3km from BlueBet Stadium.

With five bedrooms, the two-storey trophy home has plenty of space for his partner, Bailey Paris Toleafoa, and their three children.

It comes with several formal and informal living areas, plus multipurpose rooms which were marketed as being suitable for a gym, music room or library.

The master bedroom, on the second level, has a walk-in wardrobe and ensuite.

Penrith Panthers five-eighth Jarome Luai has bought his first home. Picture: NRL Photos

Bailey Paris Toleafoa and baby Halo, buyers agent Thomas Tamine and Luai celebrate.

Its rear alfresco terrace overlooks the 645sq m gardens.

The 2010-built home sold just above its $1,495,000 to $1.55m guidance from Jim Aitken & Partners agents David Reeves and Andrew Lia.

It last traded for $1.2m in 2019.

South Penrith’s median house price sits at $850,000 after 132 house sales over the past year, according to realestate.com.au.

The last prestige five-bedroom house to sell was at $1.355m in June last year.

Luai’s purchase was advised by boutique estate agent Thomas Tamine, who every now and then works in a buyer’s agency role for NRL players. Mr Tamine recently helped Rabbitohs player Cody Walker buy in Sans Souci.

The South Penrith home has plenty of room for Luai and his family.

The home is decorated in neutral tones.

There was no social media post from Luai, but his adviser shared the celebrations on Instagram midweek with Luai, Ms Toleafoa and their youngest daughter, Halo, pictured in front of the sold sign. It prompted a grateful Luai to label Mr Tamine “the goat” (greatest of all time).

He is expected to settle into the property in between games in the Ampol Origin Series.

The 26-year-old, who played juniors at St Marys, made his NRL debut in 2018.

His State of Origin debut came in 2021.

Meanwhile, club captain Nathan Cleary has taken ownership of the Western Sydney home that his father and coach, Ivan Cleary, bought a decade ago.

The Leonay home cost $1,175,000 in 2013, when Cleary was still in his mid-teens, during his father’s first stint at Penrith.

The price of the home for the internal family transfer was put at $1.7m.

MATT DORAN FOLLOWS MURPHY’S LAW

Channel 7 Weekend Sunrise host Matt Doran has listed his Bellevue Hill apartment.

Doran is hoping to take advantage of the resurgence in the tight winter property market, having failed to sell the two-bedroom apartment in mid-2021.

It has a June 24 auction guide of $1.8 million through BresicWhitney agents Maclay Longhurst and Zakir Abdallaoui.

Matt Doran and wife Kendall Bora are selling their Bellevue Hill apartment. Picture: Instagram

After buying the Tresscourt apartment from the Sky News presenter Laura Jayes and her husband, former Seven reporter Alex Hart, for $1.385 million in 2017, Doran commissioned a full redesign by Sydney designer Dylan Farrell.

Doran took on the “absolute passion project” with art tailored to the space by artist Vicki Lee.

“It’s honestly going to be tough to part with this place,” Doran told The Sell.

Doran and his wife, Weekend Today executive product Kendall Bora, are yet to buy.

“I bought it before I met Kendall, after I moved back from LA.

“The redesign was a big job; the lights and doors and windows custom-made … the centrepiece is a sliding steel door to the loungeroom, which needed 12 people to carry up and install.

There is a guide of $1.8 million for the two-bedroom apartment.

“We also extended the outdoor space, almost entirely to satisfy the demands of the galaxy’s most spoilt and demanding and glorious Italian greyhound, Murphy.”

Apparently Murphy will have the final say in their next acquisition.

Doran and Bora will retain Sunny Corner Cottage, a retreat accessed by boat on Berowra Waters, where the couple wed in July last year.

The couple, who paid $1.75 million in 2021 for the 1905 waterfront, have recently had designer Tamsin Johnson undertake its redesign into a luxury private holiday rental and event space.

THOMAS INVESTS IN SEIDLER BOLTHOLE

Retired magazine editor Deborah Thomas has bought a city bolthole investment.

It is in the Harry Seidler-designed 1960s Gemini Twin Towers, Potts Point, complex.

The Victoria St acquisition through her investment company cost $950,000 when offered through Richardson & Wrench agent Angelo Bouras.

Former magazine editor Deborah Thomas. Picture: Hollie Adams

Thomas downsized from the Point Piper harbourfront to Rushcutters Bay when she headed to Berrima in the Southern Highlands in a tree change in 2021.

Her recent one-bedroom 38sq m apartment purchase comes with city skyline views that include the Opera House.

It had been a $665-a-week rental last August, which was lower than its $680-a-week rental in 2019.

It was snapped up pre-auction when it had a $920,000 guide, having previously traded at $745,000 in 2015.

Thomas has bought in the Gemini complex at Potts Point.

A one-bedroom fifth-floor apartment, immediately above, goes to Ray White auction next week having sold at $465,000 in 2011.

The complex, which has onsite scramble security parking is popular with short-term accommodation investors, with 18 key boxes out front.

There are only studios and one-bedroom apartments in the complex, built as serviced apartments. The priciest fetched $1.04 million in late 2021, one of just two sales over $1 million.

The complex’s name comes from astrology with Gemini, a constellation which, according to ancient mythology, is made up of the twin brothers Castor and Pollux.

GRAND EXPECTATIONS FOR COLONIAL MANSION

Glenrock, the 1830s colonial mansion on 990 hectares at Marulan in the NSW southern tablelands, has been listed for sale with hopes near $100 million.

The tightly held property dates to one of Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s original land grants to pastoralist George Barber, the husband of Isabella Hume, sister of the explorer Hamilton Hume.

The 10-bedroom, 10-bathroom Georgian homestead fronted by 18 fluted columns has received an extensive restoration from its vendor, lawyer and corporate adviser Charles Mendel, who bought it in 1984 for $1.6 million.

Apparently, Mendel’s concerns over family succession planning have prompted the listing of the Highland Way property, which comes with stables, clock tower, two lakes and a boathouse, gorge and waterfall.

“I don’t want the situation where like Solomon you have to suggest something absurd like splitting the baby,” he told the financial press. His children are 16 and one year old.

Glenrock, at Marulan in the southern tablelands, has been listed for sale with hopes near $100 million.

It longest owner was the West Indies-born businessman John Morrice, a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for Camden.

The home — which appeared in the marketing campaign after the 1966 American Express gold card launch — is best associated with the late acclaimed architect Peter Muller and his wife Carole, who ran it as a Hereford cattle farm after their purchase in 1964.

Retired estate agent Bill Bridges recalled recently over lunch with The Sell that it had been his first significant listing.

Muller published a 127-page photographic record of the initial restoration of the homestead in 2010 through Walsh Bay Press.

Muller’s second-floor Walsh Bay apartment was sold this month. No sale price disclosure but the three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with 238sq m indoor space at the northernmost end of the pier had a $10.5 million guide.

It had last sold in 2000 for $3.395 million.

STEDMAN RIDES THE BYRON WAVE

Former pro surfer Luke Stedman has bought a home just outside of Byron Bay.

Stedman, who for many years split his time between Avalon Beach and California, has paid $1.637 million in Suffolk Park.

The 1995-built four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 732sq m last sold for $945,000 in 2016.

Stedman sold in Avalon just over a year ago, securing $2.4 million for his four-bedroom home through McGrath Pittwater agent James Baker.

He had bought the hillside home for $1,105,000 in 2006.

Former pro-surfer Luke Stedman in 2015.

Stedman has bought a home at Suffolk Park.

Stedman, who was once the 11th-best surfer in the world, and his partner Darsan O’Connor were off to the Northern Rivers along with their two young children to be closer to his father Shane, the surfing legend.

The Stedman family home of four decades in Mona Vale had been sold, with the patriarch relocating to Fernleigh, near Bangalow, on what had been a 1450 macadamia tree hobby farm with rainforest holding.

The aim was for a generational compound so they can watch over Shane, the 80-plus-year-old inventor of the sheepskin Ugg boot.

Suffolk Park has seen a $1.95 million median sale price over the past year, with some 45 sales, according to realestate.com.au.

The median price peaked at $2.15 million earlier this year.

FINAL CALL ON BOWRAL BEAUTY

Peter O’Connell, the co-founder of telco Amaysim and now chair of Climatech Group, has sold his Bowral retreat.

It hit the market in January at $5.5 million through DiJones agents Sarah Wotton and Leila O’Brien, with its price dropping to $4.95 million.

O’Connell had paid author Jenny Rose-Innes $4.25 million for the four-bedroom house in 2020, having previously sold his Vaucluse home for $8.9 million.

BEACH TROPHY HOME FETCHES $10M

More than $10 million has been secured for Foredune House, a beachfront MacMasters Beach trophy home.

Matt Stenwide of McGrath secured the sale of the Peter Stutchbury-designed five-bedroom home.

It was built in 2017 on the 1023sq m Tudibaring Pde block that cost $2.3 million in 2011.

It ranks as the second highest sale in the suburb, with a five-bedroom beachfront home securing $13.5 million in 2022.

TAKEOFF AFTER LONG RUNWAY

After 50 days on the market, former Qantas chief Geoff Dixon and his wife Dawn have sold their three-bedroom, two-bathroom Darling Point apartment.

It’s just two years since they bought the Eastbourne Rd apartment. It came with a guide of $6 million to $6.5 million.

The couple had paid $6,005,000 in April 2021, just 15 days into its marketing, having sold nearby for $11.15 million.