The Sell: Samantha Armytage sells Burrawang weekender for $3.1m
Sunrise presenter Sam Armytage has sold her Southern Highlands weekend for a tidy profit, just months after offloading her North Bondi home. SEE THE GORGEOUS PICTURES AND SALE PRICE
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Channel 7’s Sunrise presenter Sam Armytage has sold her Southern Highlands weekender.
She has secured a $3.1m off-market buyer for the Burrawang cottage, in a deal well up on her $2.2m purchase price from three years ago.
Armytage also sold her North Bondi home for $3.15m in July, just a month after her June engagement to Richard Lavender, a Quirindi-born equestrian businessman.
It would suggest Armytage intends living with her fiance at his longtime Berrima estate elsewhere in the Highlands.
He celebrated his 61st birthday on Saturday with Sam turning 43 on Friday.
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The couple met at a friend’s 60th birthday party in the Highlands in April last year.
There’d been no development application to the five-bedroom, five-bathroom cottage during her brief ownership, although she did change the name from Pear Tree Cottage to Churchill.
The 2ha property, which sold through Di Dixon at Belle Property Bowral, has an open-plan kitchen and dining area overlooking paddocks with post-and-rail fencing.
Her redundant North Bondi home was sold to chef Greg Anderson and his wife Patricia Nunes, who had been looking for a new home since selling their St Ives home for $2.08m.
The three-bedroom North Bondi home had been listed with a $2.8m guide, having been bought by Armytage for $2.15m in 2014, just as the Sydney price boom was kicking into gear.
She has been spotted inspecting eastern suburbs rentals, given her commitment to be in Sydney for the breakfast show four days a week.
Her television career began in 1999 and she joined Seven after having impressed executives during her coverage of the 2003 Canberra bushfires.
Armytage grew up in the high country, Snowy River territory, on historic Bolaro Station.
With additional reporting by Joel Robinson
MAFS COUPLE BUY AT CROMER
Married At First Sight success story Cameron Merchant and wife Jules Robinson have bought their first home together. They’ve spent $1,806,000 on their family home in Cromer.
Settling just weeks before the pair welcome their first child in mid-September, the four-bedroom home is getting a quick makeover.
However, the couple have apparently chosen not to find out the gender of their baby, which has limited choices for the nursery by their decorators, The Block duo Mitch Edwards and Mark McKie.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom, northern beaches house last traded for $1,075,000 in 2014.
It had recently been a $1300-a-week rental before its sale by Belle agent Nick Duchatel, who secured a pre-auction deal.
Cromer has 40 properties currently for sale on realestate.com.au, which puts its four-bedroom median price at $1.65 million. Based on five years of sales, Cromer has seen a compound growth rate of 6.6 per cent for houses.
The buy comes after Merchant sold his one-bedroom Kirribilli apartment for a loss. It fetched $926,000 post-auction, having been bought for $941,000 in 2017, just before he took part in the Channel 9 show in 2018.
Merchant retains an investment in Dee Why’s Grand Reef complex, which cost $720,000 in 2014.
The Cromer property was bought by the couple, who married last November, although Jules’ co-ownership has been registered under her maiden name.
SWANS CO-CAPTAIN PARKER SEEKS MALABAR SALE
Sydney Swans co-captain Luke Parker has listed his Malabar property. The 27-year-old midfielder is selling the five-bedroom house with $3 million hopes.
Parker bought it for $2.66 million in 2017, when it promptly became an $1800-a-week rental, and then offered again at $1700 last year.
Ray White Maroubra agent Nader Hotait has scheduled a September 26 auction for the two-storey home which is encased in glass.
Set on a 375sqm block, the home features a split-level master suite with a balcony, a gourmet kitchen with a 5.5m island bench, and a living area with designated dining space.
A pool sits in the garden with native Australian flora. There are ocean views from its Victoria St location.
Parker is a dab hand in property, having been selected by realestate.com.au to provide video content on his projects undertaken with his seven-year partner interior decorator, Kate Lawrence.
Parker, whose Swans are three games out of the eight, and set to miss the AFL finals for the second year in a row, recently finished working on a stunning duplex in Matraville with Lawrence.
Tenants are being sought for one of the Lawson St houses, which has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. There is a pool in its north-facing yard, plus large entertainers’ deck and grass.
“The landlord was open to including pool and garden maintenance as part of the letting,” its Belle leasing agent Luke Overs advised.
Earlier this year Parker sold a Maroubra investment for $1.45 million, having paid $1.3 million in 2016.
Parker was picked up in the 2010 draft by Sydney after playing for the Dandenong Stingrays.
LAKE MACQUARIE STUNNER HITS THE MARKET
A luxury waterfront home on Lake Macquarie has hit the market. The home was obviously inspired by architect Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Illinois, US.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home, located at Eraring, is expected to sell for $2 million.
Situated on more than 9000sqm, the home exudes a sleek luxury resort minimalism feel, with floor-to-ceiling windows, entertaining deck and pool.
The vendors are theatre production designer Mark Thompson and Kerry Crawford, the CEO of arts and disability organisation Accessible Arts.
Their building block was purchased in 1995 for $225,000, with the grounds including an artist studio where Thompson has painted. In 2009, he was an Archibald finalist for his portrait of actor Greta Scacchi.
McGrath Toukley agents Chris Smith and Mitchell Thomas have scheduled the auction for October 17.
The house is located on the western shore of Lake Macquarie and north of the town of Morisset.
Smith last month secured a $6 million Eraring sale when Mandalay, the luxury six-bedroom, six bathroom home, with 14-car garage, attracted six registered bidders mainly out of Sydney. A Sydney businessman secured it as a weekender.
Mandalay, which sits on 2.7ha on the tip of the peninsula with 481m of waterfront, was offered by Compass Helicopters boss Graeme Thomas who is moving to a nearby acreage.
He had bought the property five years ago for $1.58 million and undertaken a comprehensive modernisation of the estate.
The lakeside record had been $4.25 million when set in January.
Eraring is 30 minutes via helicopter to Sydney airport.
SAMBA SELLING COOGEE RENTAL
Thoroughbred racing enthusiast Victoria Samba is selling in Coogee.
It’s been a rental since Samba relocated to Melbourne.
It was most recently offered as a $1850-a-weeker last year, but is being offered with vacant possession through Jason Pantzer at Phillips Pantzer Donnelley for its September 26 auction.
Samba had paid $2.91 million in 2017 for the Dolphin St home when briefly moving from the Randwick home that she and then-husband, recruitment firm boss Mitch Hoare, sold for $3,575,000.
The Coogee home, on 220sqm, spans two levels designed to take advantage of its northerly aspect.
Thoroughly modern, the home has four bedrooms, a custom-fitted study, and an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area that spills on to a rear garden with built-in barbecue.
Samba, the daughter of the late Melbourne racing identity Les Samba, moved to the Mornington Peninsula late last year to live with her horse-veterinarian partner.
LEESER LISTS ’20S CHARMER IN THE HILLS
The Pennant Hills property of Federal politician Julian Leeser has hit the market.
The three-bedroom 1920s period home has been listed through Patrick Goode at Soames North Shore.
The home has high ornate ceilings, timber floors and fireplaces.
Leeser has resided in the home with his barrister wife Joanna Davidson for a decade. They will upgrade locally.
His mobile reception is OK, but since his 2016 election, Leeser has pursued Telstra over black spots within the Berowra electorate.
“Telecommunications should be like electricity and water. It is absurd that people living 40 minutes from the Sydney CBD can’t get mobile coverage,” Leeser said in a recent submission to the Department of Communications.
The property is just a few doors away from the former MP Philip Ruddock.