The Sell: Sophie Monk buys new property at Matcham on the Central Coast
Love Island Australia hostess Sophie Monk looks set to move to NSW, putting her Gold Coast property up for rent and buying a $2 million-plus home on the Central Coast. SEE HER GORGEOUS NEW PLACE HERE.
NSW
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Love Island Australia hostess Sophie Monk has spent around $2.25 million to quietly buy on the NSW Central Coast.
She has secured a vast three-bedroom, two-bathroom hinterland home on 8000sqm at Matcham. It was marketed as offering relaxed semi-rural living by its McGrath selling agent Trevor Hamilton.
The closest beaches are Wamberal and Forresters if she wants to tear herself away from the pool at the single-level home.
There was a $250,000 renovation approved last year to the 2000-built house that last traded at $1.4 million in 2016.
It has a luxury master bedroom with ensuite and essential oversized walk-in wardrobe. It also has a home theatre, electric fireplace and floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in its loungeroom.
The acreage has a natural backdrop, with spacious outdoor entertaining with fireplace and built-in pizza oven.
There are just five houses currently for sale in the coastal hinterland district, located 55km from Sydney, where the median house price in the past 12 months from 13 sales was $1,850,000, according to realestate.com.au. There was a $2 million peak when 11 acreages sold in 2018.
Based in Los Angeles for 10 years, Monk has retained her Gold Coast estate which she bought in 2016 for $1.1 million. She has put the five-bedroom, three-bathroom Helensvale home up for rent at $1200 a week.
Set on 4000sqm of land in the Riverdowns Estate, Monk had recently renovated the two-storey house. There is a pool, boat ramp and jetty on one of the Gold Coast’s renowned waterways.
Monk got her big break in the Bardot pop group in the late 1990s. She starred in The Bachelorette and is now the face of Hello Fresh.
The former Gold Coast local has been with her boyfriend Joshua Gross, an entrepreneur who specialises in neurosurgical robotics, since 2018 when they met on a plane after she had just finished filming Love Island in Mallorca.
“I’d love to have a family one day, but we’re not trying yet,” she said last year.
MIRANDA MOOTED IN $7.5M HUNTER VALLEY HOME BUY
The whisper is that international model Miranda Kerr liked Loggerheads, the trophy Hunter Valley vineyard, so much she has now bought it for around $7.5 million.
The Pokolbin estate includes a 36-year-old vineyard, plus the Michael Suttor-refurbished homestead amid Paul Bangay landscaping.
There’s a summer house, pool, orchard, vegetable garden, and shiraz and gamay vines.
It has been sold mid-June by Alan Rydge’s QT Hotels, who paid $6 million in 2016 when it was bought from the late Macquarie Bank co-founder Robin Crawford and his wife Judy. Crawford, who had purchased it from Trish Evans, the widow of winemaker Len Evans for $5.15 million in 2008. It was owned by Tyrrell wines before that.
Kerr, now married to Malibu-based billionaire Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, rented the estate at Christmas 2015 when she spent time with her Gunnedah-based family, including restauranteur brother Matty, who at the time was running Nanna Kerr’s Kitchen, just down the road, with his then fiance James Wright.
Sunflower Fun Pty Ltd, an Arnold Bloch Leibler law firm nominee company, is its mystery buyer.
LISA LISTS PALM BEACH STUNNER
Lisa Keighery has listed her Snapperman’s Beach, Palm Beach, retreat with $17 million hopes. The beachfront, set on the prized Iluka Rd, is being marketed by its McGrath agent William Manning as a classic contemporary home.
“It is the epitome of beachside luxury and style,” Manning said.
Keighery, who used architect Alexander Roth along with Marco Meneguzzi for the interiors, is now seeking a Southern Highlands cottage project, and to buy back into the Sydney market. Her home was bought for $7,555,000 in 2007, a year before her fashion designer husband Mark Keighery died after fighting cancer for 10 years.
Her listing follows the recent $9 million nearby purchase by Anthony Scali, making it the retail family’s third buy.
The Mitchell family had paid $72,500 in 1977. Goldman Sachs’ Zac Fletcher bought the adjoining building block for $10.35 million.
The top sale on Iluka Rd remains Uncle Toby’s founder Doug Shears, who bought Anakela for $15 million in 2007 from the late grocery tycoon Jim Fleming.
BOB ELL SELLS AT NOOSA
Bob Ell, the billionaire property developer, has sold at Noosa, which is emerging as the hottest domestic destination property market in the pandemic given international travel restraints.
He and wife Bridget sought an ambitious $11.5 million and pocketed $9.625 million through local agent Tom Offermann.
They built the six-bedroom holiday home after they snared the Noosa Pde site in a post-global financial crisis distress sale in 2011 for $2.75 million. The prior owner had paid $4.85 million in 2007. Their construction costs were estimated at $5 million.
The Budds Beach-based father-of-seven, who heads Leda Holdings, retains Addenbrooke in Bellevue Hill as a Sydney bolthole. It was bought from Denis O’Neil for $30 million in 2015.
TOPSY-TURVY SYDNEY SALES
There were three noteworthy Sydney sales during the week, including a Chinese family in Hunters Hill taking a big loss.
Zhangqiang Wu accepted $10.6 million which was less than the $12.85 million paid in 2015 for the Chevalier Cres offering.
Across town, billionaire developer Phillip Lee and his wife Xiao Bei Shi secured $12 million for their 1940s Bellevue Hill home, which cost $8.15 million in 2016. They had initial hopes in April last year of $12 million to $13 million.
After an earlier sale failed to proceed, the British government secured $10 million-plus for its Consul General’s Vaucluse residence which cost $405,000 in 1972.