The Sell: NRL star Cameron Murray’s childhood Botany home listed for sale
The childhood home of Rabbitohs and Kangaroos star Cameron Murry has been listed for sale, real estate insider Jonathan Chancellor reveals.
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The Botany home where South Sydney Rabbitoh and Kangaroos star Cameron Murray grew up – together with his sister Bryanna – has been listed for sale.
Their parents – father Corey, who was a five-eight at Souths in the early 1990s, and mother Angela – bought the townhouse in 2002, when Cameron was just five years old.
They paid $630,000 off the plan to the developer of the Victoria Gardens complex, builder/developer George Hanna.
The most recent three-bedroom Victoria St townhouse sale was when a three-level townhouse with additional cinema room fetched $1,505,000. Another fetched $1,491,000 a few months prior.
Murray’s teammate Josh Mansour spruced up the Murrays’ three-bedroom townhouse with a vast patio, through his renovation company Renosell, ahead of its marketing.
McGrath Coogee agents Marnie Seinor and Connor Mirotsos are marketing the Victoria Street property, which sits on 255sq m opposite Garnet Jackson Reserve, for auction on November 12.
The Murrays are a one-team family as Cameron’s younger sister Bryanna played for the Rabbitohs Tarsha Gale Cup team.
Cameron’s decision to play for the red and green was an easy one in following in the footsteps of his father.
Murray, the vice-captain in the Kangaroos World Cup squad, rejigged his own property portfolio earlier this year, selling a Randwick investment for $1.1m.
He had paid $890,000 for the top-floor 1930s apartment in 2017. He calls Clovelly home, having spent $1.25m on a two-bedroom apartment there in 2019.
‘GREAT’ RELISTING GOES AGAINST THE TREND
With fresh listings across Sydney down 18 per cent – and the auction withdrawal rate at record highs – ravenous estate agents have their focus more than ever on securing the unsold listings of rival agents.
Last week’s big failed campaign relisting was nabbed by PPD’s Alexander Phillips from Gavin Rubinstein, the Luxe Listings Sydney cast member.
Rubinstein’s autumn sales campaign saw the Vaucluse home bounced from two scheduled auction dates.
The vendors, former Westpac director of corporate and institutional distribution Michael Correa and his Moree-born wife, designer Heidi Carter, who founded the fashion line Paddo to Palmy, had it listed with $16m hopes.
The Parkside home, originally designed by architect Peter Muller, and refreshed with interiors by designers Handelsmann + Khaw, comes with even higher hopes through Phillips. Now jestingly dubbed “Alexander the Great” after a recent gushing profile by Nine Entertainment, Phillips has a $17m-$18m price advisory.
The couple bought it in 2017 for $7.8m from the Milsom family who had bought it in 2011 from professional golfer Michael Campbell for $6.6m.
Correa, who now heads Nest Alliance, has leading agents Danny Doff, Alison Coopes, D’Leanne Lewis, Michael Finger, Paul Langsam, Brad Pillinger, Ben Collier, William Manning, Geoff Cox, Darren Curtis, Jason Boon and Matt Lahoud, to name a few, among his presumably expectant professional contacts on LinkedIn.
Phillips’ surprise price boost for the Palmerston St listing defies the normal sequence that sees vendors weaken their lofty expectations on its second marketing endeavour. The costliest case in the current downturn was the much reported, but disputed, drop from $38m to $28m for a luxury Bellevue Hill listing.
Some vendors even get to their third agency, as was the case with the Rose Bay apartment of Bachelor star Tim Robards and his lawyer wife, Anna Heinrich. Their 1930s New South Head Rd apartment came with $3.45m hopes last December. It was back for sale in May with $2.8m pre-auction guidance, but passed in on a $3m vendor bid through Ray White TRG.
The guidance before its September sale – reportedly to Nine sports reporter Danny Weidler – was $2.6m, with as yet no official price.
Expect to see more mopping up ahead of the Christmas shutdown.
BresicWhitney agent Maclay Longhurst was spotted midweek seeking to relist a failed Potts Point trophy home listing by Highland Property.
EASTERN SUBURBS SHUFFLE
Political lobbyist Michael Kauter and his kidney specialist husband Professor David Gracey saw the settlement of their Woollahra home mid-week at $10.25m.
The mystery buyers were Jody and Greg Hall, the retired PwC veteran, who recently sold Woollahra’s historic Spicer House to celebrity agent Nick Fordham and wife Elizabeth through Alexander Phillips for $14.5m after just seven days on the market.
The Kauters’ Holdsworth Street home, which cost $5.5m in 2017, was no easy seller – it was on the market for 75 days through Ray White TRG – for the couple, who are off to the former 1910 postmaster’s residence on Raglan Street, Mosman. They bought it for $9.1m from the pioneering laser cosmetic surgeon Jack Ting and his wife Anne, who are Malaysia-bound.
Meanwhile, having failed to find a buyer in recent times through a whisper quiet campaign, Ben Collier at The Agency has now advised a November 19 auction date for the Nelson Street home of The Book Thief author Marcus Zusak and wife Mika.
The 1890 home, Apheta (above) on its 474sq m holding has hopes of $15m. The three-storey family home was featured in Vogue in 2020 after its $500,000 update was overseen by architect Mary Ellen Hudson.
Mika, who has worked in a supermarket personnel department, paid $4.5m in 2009 for the Victorian Italianate home, whose previous owners include Mirvac co-founder Henry Pollack. It stood with Edgecliff Road frontage until 1912.
JOCKEYING FOR HORSE BREEDER’S SPREAD
Prominent Melbourne horse breeder and builder David Moodie, who operates Hesket Thoroughbreds, has listed his Dunmore property on the NSW Illawarra Coast.
It follows the recent expansion of his thoroughbred interests in regional Victoria.
The 40ha Fig Hill Lane holding is a development opportunity that has been listed with $6 million hopes through Peter Chittenden and Daniel Watt at Woodhill Estate Agents.
It comes with a partly completed vast 5000sq m trophy home plus approval for 33 eco-villas close to the mouth of the Minnamurra River.
Moodie bought into the project for $990,000 in 2019, securing a half share from Elizabeth Bay entrepreneur Tony Peterson, who had paid $1.45 million in 2015.
Dubbed “the abandoned Minnamurra mansion”, work on the homestead was two-thirds complete when construction stopped in 2009 after the Belmorgan companies of the property’s then owner John Kosseris went into receivership, complicated by court orders to restore environmentally sensitive wetlands damaged during the works.
Moodie, the former Racing Victoria chairman, recently purchased the Spendthrift Australia operation after its US owner quit its 244ha property, formerly known as Yallambee Stud.
Moodie, whose racing honour roll includes Golden Slipper winner Crystal Lily, already owned Yungaburra at nearby Newham in the Macedon Ranges.
LUXURY IN MUDGEE
Former rugby league player turned publican Jamie Fitzgerald and wife Gina are on the move in Mudgee. The couple, who are the publicans of the Woolpack Hotel and Paragon Hotel, are selling the Gladstone St home through McGrath Central Tablelands agent Ben Reynolds.
There is a $1.7m guide for the four-bedroom 1920s home that has been extended and renovated.
It retains its period facade and now has a “custom Hamptons-inspired extension”, Reynolds noted.
The near 800sq m block comes with a heated pool set in a landscaped rear yard with a fire pit.
Jamie, who was born in Mudgee, played for North Sydney, St George Illawarra, South Sydney, and the Newcastle Knights during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including North Sydney’s final game as a first grade side.
The couple will stay in the Central West town that has a population of just over 12,000.
Its median house price sits at $637,000, up 27 per cent in the past year, according to realestate.com.au
FASHION CONSCIOUS
The Kensington home of fashion stylist Nicole Bonython-Hines and her husband Peter Hines has been sold for $4,132,000. The couple are downsizing from the Queen Anne federation home with five bedrooms and a study.
Bonython-Hines, who has worked for Vogue, Madison, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, had listed their family home, Aberfoyle, with $3.75m hopes. But it sold before auction to Richard Wilks.
The couple had bought the Todman Ave home in 2008 for $1.725m and commissioned a Tribe Design Studio fit-out in 2018. It was offered with approval for garaging and a parents’ retreat to the 1905 home that sits on a 689sq m block.
At the time they’d sold elsewhere in Kensington for $2.2m to former Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes.
Kensington’s median price sits at $3.3m, according to realestate.com.au
VIEW TO A THRILL
The Conley family has sold their late 1940s Palm Beach house, Karingal, which was listed with hopes of $10m.
The P&O-style house has been renovated since last traded in 2009 when bought from the car dealership Kumar family for $3.55m.
The Florida Road home, which has stunning views, is owned by the family’s Broken Hill Investments company, which was established by the late aviation pioneer and philanthropist John Conley who died in 2006.
It is now controlled by his widow Judy and their daughters Annie Conley and Stephanie Conley-Buhre.
The company’s longtime Darling Point site with three blocks of art deco apartment complexes overlooking Rushcutters Bay on a 2380sq m holding has hopes of $45m.
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