The Sell: Emma Freedman pulls home from auction to chase higher price
The Sell: Sports presenter Emma Freedman and her husband are staring down any bargain hunters, pulling their Paddington terrace from auction this weekend.
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Accomplished television and radio sports presenter Emma Freedman and her husband, asset manager Charlie Rundle, have pulled their Paddington terrace from its scheduled weekend auction.
Having initially hit the market with a guide of $3.125m, the price guidance on the Stewart St terrace was adjusted down to $2.95m during its 32 days of marketing.
And showing a steely determination, their auction-eve decision saw the price guidance adjusted upwards to $3m-$3.3m after the couple rejected an eleventh-hour $3m offer.
Alexander Phillips, of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley, took the names of seven inspectees in the first 10 minutes of yesterday’s busy open house, and the property garnered some 6800 online views during its campaign on realestate.com.au.
Any sale will be profitable for Rundle, who paid $2.19m in 2016.
Back then, the two-level home had come with a guide of $2m, which was revised upwards to $2.1m through the campaign.
The couple had only heard about the listing three hours before it went to auction.
There are three upstairs bedrooms, plus a downstairs home office.
Freedman and Rundle have modernised the 1890s Stewart St property, refreshing the floorboards, updating the kitchen, and adding synthetic grass at the rear that can double up as parking space.
There’s been no sign yet of another purchase by the Rundles, who married in 2018 after becoming engaged in late 2017.
No doubt it will be an upsize, given they have had two children since the purchase of this terrace. Will, is nearly four, and his sister Edie is two.
Realestate.com.au calculates prices for four-bedroom houses in Paddington have dropped 12 per cent in the past year, to a $3.85m median.
There are 32 houses currently for sale, in the suburb, which is a decent number since it saw 97 sales in the past year, down on the 138 in the prior 12 months.
There are some 22 agents, many from out of area, with listings.
Last weekend, a modern terrace sold for $8.95m through McGrath agents Luke Hogan and Fraser Turvey. The three-level Torrens-titled terrace had last traded at $3.81m in 2012.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom property, with double garaging, comes with views over the Royal Hospital for Women Park.
There’s whispers the McGrath Paddington office recently secured an off-market $10m-plus sale of a heritage terrace on Paddington St, which would rank as the suburb’s fourth-highest sale. The record stands at $12m.
The McGrath agency took office space on Five Ways last year with the aim of reinstating its era of dominancy following its foundation in the suburb by John McGrath in the late 1980s.
O’KEEFE BATS FOR A SECOND TIME
Sydney Sixers legend Steve O’Keefe has sold the first of three speculative investment properties at Lennox Head, the Northern Rivers coastal village.
O’Keefe and business partner Greg Webb had master builder Sam Penrose build the triplex home project in the new Eqip Estate, not far from the beach where Byron Bay and Ballina sit at each end.
They had been seeking — and secured — $975,000 for the initial contemporary three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on Habitat Way.
The home features an open-plan kitchen with stone benchtops and a breakfast bar, which opens to an alfresco dining space. They have now listed another house on the block, which comes with similar $975,000 hopes.
O’Keefe, who has signed a one-year extension to play another season with the Sixers, has been keen on property investing and development throughout his long cricket career.
“This has been a passion project of mine and Greg’s. The Richmond/Tweed area is a gorgeous place,” said O’Keefe, who plans to live in the area at some stage.
His previous projects included a Mudgee build that sold in 2019 after buying the building blocks in 2013.
O’Keefe and partner Lexie Cartwright live in Manly in an apartment bought off the plan for $921,500 in 2011.
O’Keefe, who is the Australian Test cap number 439, produced match figures of 12-70 in Pune during Australia’s last Test tour of India in 2017. He was part of the inaugural Sixers team back in 2011, and has won three Big Bash League titles.
SUMMER OVER FOR MICHELLE BRIDGES
Michelle Bridges, the entrepreneurial fitness instructor, has listed Summerside, her Southern Highlands retreat, as “increased business commitments” in Sydney have triggered the listing of her Kangaloon property.
The initial listing reports advised around $7m was being sought for the 4ha property, but there has also been a $6.5m price guidance before its March 14 auction.
The Kangaloon Rd has an in-ground pool and tennis court. There is a barn-style double garage with a loft bedroom.
Its landscaped gardens feature established trees and vegetable gardens designed by Michael Bligh.
The five-bedroom, three-bathroom property was originally bought in late 2017 for $2.7m as a lifestyle estate and weekender for the family, when she outbid chef Luke Mangan.
There have been only three sales at Kangaloon in the past 12 months ranging from $1.55m to $10.1m.
As autumn descends on the Southern Highlands, another Kangaloon estate, Sunnybank, has been listed for March auction, with $13m price guidance.
Bridges sold her Pomeroy, Potts Point apartment in June 2020 for $6.4m, departing Sydney to escape the glare of the paparazzi following her drink-driving charge in January 2020 as she struggled with the end of her relationship with her son’s father and fellow celebrity personal trainer, Steve “Commando” Willis.
No purchase in Sydney has yet become known for her return abode, although she recently has been seen working out in Rushcutters Bay Park.
LISA HO RETURNS TO SYDNEY
Fashion designer turned interior decorator Lisa Ho seems set to make a return to Sydney property, tipped to emerge as a buyer in Potts Point.
Ho, who lives at Blueys Beach in the Pacific Palms district with property developer Nick Jacenko, has been absent from the Sydney market for about a decade.
It is whispered she has spent $4.8m on an original five-bedroom, two-bathroom Victoria St terrace, secured from the NSW Land and Housing Corporation.
The two-level classic Victorian home pitched as a rare, 6m-wide grand terrace “ripe for visionary transformation” last traded at $175,000 in 1985. It sits on a 235sq m block with rear lane access for two cars.
Ho sold Silverton, her 1884 Italianate residence on Dutruc St, Randwick, in 2013 for $2.9m.
She and Jacenko have owned a beachfront at Blueys Beach since 2018 when they spent $1.8m.
They have a development site at Tuncurry.
Ho started her career at Paddington market in the early 1980s.
TODD GREENBERG’S OATLEY GEM SELLS FOR $5.5M
Negotiations saw a record $5.55m paid pre-auction midweek for the Oatley home of sports administrator Todd Greenberg, the former NRL boss who now heads the Australian Cricketers’ Association, and his wife Lisa.
The couple are downsizing from the contemporary five-bedroom, three-bathroom waterfront home that sits on Oatley Bay.
Set across three levels, the home sits on a 714 sqm block which features a heated pool and jetty.
It sold through Kieran Bresnahan and Sharyn Hopkins of McGrath who kicked off the marketing with the advisory of record suburb price expectations, which at the time meant $4.8m.
Earlier this month there was a $4.85m record paid on Southern St. But after some 50 inspections, the property sold to a couple from Darlinghurst, who had been previously looking on the Balmain Peninsula.
Their search had been guided by Amanda Gould, the founder of the HighSpec Properties buyers’ agency.
The Greenbergs had extensively renovated since paying $2.1m for the Oatley home in 2013, the year he joined the NRL and three years before taking the chief executive position, succeeding David Smith. Greenberg left the NRL in 2020.
Realestate.com.au puts Oatley’s median house price at $2.11m. Oatley’s latest listing is 68 Algernon St, Oatley, once the home of acclaimed author John O’Grady.
P.E NATION FOUNDER SELLS WAREHOUSE
The Avalon Beach home of Claire Tregoning, the low-key co-founder of the P.E Nation activewear fashion label, has been sold. It was listed with $6.5m to $7m hopes.
The striking property came to market last month following Tregoning’s separation from her cinematographer husband Tim last year.
The home sits on an expansive 1390sq m holding has been sold at an undisclosed price.
The home comes with an inner Sydney industrial edge with its vast warehouse-style space with 8m ceilings.
The property was bought for $1.22m in 2014 with the home then designed by architect Daniel Raymond.
PE Nation was founded in late 2015 by Tregoning and Pip Edwards. Claire and Tim retain a shareholding in the fashion business, according to ASIC documents.
WRITER’S PAD SELLS
Writer Mark Doyle, better known by his adopted name Louis Nowra, sold his Woolloomooloo apartment prior to Saturday’s auction.
He secured $710,000 for the one-bedroom apartment, which was just above its $700,000 guidance.
The recently styled Art Deco, north-facing, 55sqm unit is located on the third-floor corner of Westminster Hall, the complex built in the late 1920s when there were grand designs for the William St promenade. It comes with Harbour Bridge cameos.
It has access to the common rooftop and shared laundry.
Nowra, who has a new book out called Sydney: A Biography, purchased the apartment for $295,000 in 2002.
He’s relocated to his partner Mandy Sayer’s nearby Darlinghurst apartment. They have been together for 23 years but have never lived together.
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