The Sell: Footballers Latrell Mitchell, Buddy Franklin and Sam Burgess selling properties
The Sell: Footy players have had an active week on the property market, with NRL stars Latrell Mitchell and Sam Burgess, and AFL hero Buddy Franklin all selling up.
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NRL star Latrell Mitchell is seeking $1.38m for his 222ha cattle farm at Caffreys Flat, near Taree.
The South Sydney player bought his retreat, in Biripi country, in 2020 for $600,000 from the Munro family, which had owned the farm for more than four decades.
Mitchell is hoping to find a buyer from the local community with a passion for preserving the farm’s natural beauty and promoting sustainable agriculture.
“The valleys, the river, the trees all tell a story, but it was the land I was connected too so that’s the reason I fell in love with it,” he advised on its recent listing through Society Real Estate agent Nathan McCullum, who is also a financial adviser, mortgage broker and sports agent.
The farm has been the venue for bonding with Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou, according to a recent article by Daily Telegraph sports journalist Brent Read.
“Demetriou has extracted the best out of Mitchell because he has wrapped an arm around the Rabbitohs superstar, spending time with him on his farm and taking the time to develop a personal relationship with the club’s most important player,” Read wrote this month.
“They will lift the premiership trophy thanks to the brilliance of a fit Mitchell, who only has to stay on the field to guarantee the Rabbitohs are a top-four side.
“Mitchell has become the most transcendental figure in the game.
“When he is happy off the field, he is unstoppable on it.”
The footballer reportedly has many happy memories of his time at the farm, though at one point during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns he was fined for breaching health laws after driving to it for a camping trip with 10 others.
Almost 90 per cent of the land — divided into 16 paddocks with 14 dams, providing ample water for up to 90 head of mixed cattle — is cleared for farm use
The property’s Nowendoc River frontage also provides a recreational setting for fishing and kayaking.
Since Mitchell’s 2020 purchase, there have been seven sales at Caffreys Flat, topping out at $1.1m for a 40ha camping holding with 100-year-old homestead, known as the Knorrit Flat Riverside Retreat.
Mitchell’s decision to list follows the star snapping up a near-new luxury $4,275,000 home at Ramsgate Beach in southern Sydney mid-last year.
At the time Mitchell posted the purchase to his Instagram, with an image of his wife, Brielle Mercy, and his two children in front of the sold sign with the caption “making moves”.
There are five bedrooms, the master complete with bespoke joinery and an ensuite. There’s a cinema room off the main open-plan stone kitchen, living and dining space. It features several skylights.
The 25-year-old Taree-born Mitchell had been based in Chifley since 2018, when he paid $1.45m for a restored 1950s brick house.
When he bought at Caffreys Flat, it came with a ramshackle stone and timber shack, which was burnt down in bushfires.
Mitchell followed up with a 2021 nearby purchase of a 19ha property for $1,815,000 as a home for his parents Matt and Trish.
BURGESS TRIES FOR SWEET SALE PRICE
South Sydney Rabbitohs legend Sam Burgess has his Little Bay coastal investment apartment listed with $1.2 million guidance.
The top-floor apartment has ocean views.
NG Farah’s Martin Farah and Steve Ausling have the Cawood Ave listing, with a March 25 auction planned.
The living, kitchen and dining spaces are central to the apartment, flanked by two bedrooms. The living space, and a bedroom, open to a northeast balcony.
Apparently Burgess wants to sell to buy something with more space.
He bought in 2015 at the off-the-plan launch of the Illume development along with two of his three brothers.
Tom, who is still with the Bunnies, and George, who has recently retired from rugby, bought apartments, but have since sold.
Sam paid $955,000 for his 107sq m apartment, which was settled on its 2018 completion.
George was the first brother to sell. He sold for $1.35 million in 2018, shortly after settlement, having paid the same price three years earlier.
Tom owned two apartments in the block, selling the first for $992,500 in 2020, some $7500 less than the $1 million he spent off the plan five years earlier.
Tom’s large three-bedroom apartment then sold for $1.55 million, $100,000 better than he was asking and nearly $150,000 more than the $1.405 million he paid.
The close-knit brothers have the 4B fashion business.
Little Bay two-bedroom apartments have a $1.3 million median price, up 2.8 per cent over the past year, according to realestate.com.au.
The last two-bedder in the block sold for $1.3 million in November. Realestate.com.au says they lease at $835 a week.
OFFER LOBS BEFORE THE FINAL SIREN
The Rose Bay apartment of Buddy and Jesinta Franklin went under offer on its auction eve ahead of Saturday’s scheduled bidding contest.
There was no price reveal, but there had been a $5 million to $5.5 million price guidance for the ground-floor apartment when it hit the market in November.
The couple had paid $5 million off the plan in 2020, which was settled on its completion early in 2021.
There had been more than 6000 views on realestate.com.au of the four-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment with 200sq m of space plus 200sq m of garden.
Listing agent Paul Biller at Biller Property Double Bay opened it for 45 minutes on Saturday since contracts had yet to be exchanged after the offer and acceptance on Friday.
The offer came in the nick of time as rival agent Gavin Rubinstein had been circling, hoping to snare the prestige listing in MHND Union-designed complex The Carlisle.
Meanwhile, Highland Double Bay agent Denise Cameron was at the Carlisle St complex’s front door to solicit attendees for her listing.
Cameron has a three-bedroom north-facing apartment that has been set for a March 16 auction with $3.7 million guidance.
While Franklin re-signed with the Sydney Swans for another year, the couple will be off to Villa Casa, a striking Hollywood Hills-style trophy home in the Gold Coast hinterland.
The recently completed seven-bedroom Reedy Creek house, which is cantilevered out from the hillside, settled last month at $8.75 million.
With 1096sq m of living space plus six-star outdoor amenities, the home by Reece Keil Design won the Gold Coast Master Builders Award for House of the Year.
CANNON-BROOKES’ BEACH BUY UP CONTINUES
Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and wife Annie continue to buy properties on Pittwater’s western shores.
They have bought again at Great Mackerel Beach, which is accessible only by boat.
The $2.55 million escape is on bushland beachfront Ross Smith Parade, bought in Annie’s name with no registered mortgage.
It is an 1950s two-bedroom, two-bathroom fisherman’s cottage at the southern end marketed as an “incredible opportunity” to build a dream house on 650sq m.
L J Hooker Palm Beach agents David Edwards and son BJ Edwards sold it for under the $2.7 million guide.
The home is three doors along from the one the Cannon-Brookes clan bought in 2020 for $2.35 million in a company then directed by Cannon-Brookes’ busy buyer’s agent Steve Smith.
The recent purchase was one of eight at Great Mackerel Beach in 2022.
The most recent sale was by the member for Wentworth Allegra Spender to Space Industry Association of Australia head, and occasional political aspirant, James Brown.
SERVING UP A NEW ABODE
Simmone Logue, the esteemed caterer, and her husband, property industry veteran Ray Sproats, are swapping Elizabeth Bay harbourfront apartments.
Their apartment in the Billyard Gardens complex has been listed with $6.5 million hopes via Romany Brooks at the BresicWhitney agency.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment cost $5.3 million in 2021 in the 1960s Billyard Ave block that comes with a jetty and harbour pool.
The couple are moving just a few doors away.
They have bought the $11 million garden apartment in Del Rio that was sold by Melanie Greensmith, who founded the Wheels & Dollbaby luxury rock and roll clothing label, and her rock industry partner Mark McEntee.
The apartment had traded at $4.25 million in 2013 in the 1920s Spanish Mission-style complex.
REAL ESTATE VISIONARY PUSHED GLOBAL EXPANSION
Max Raine, the former chairman of the Raine & Horne estate agency, passed away mid-week aged 91.
Raine was the third-generation Raine family member to lead the esteemed property group which has his son, Angus, as its executive chairman.
Thomas Raine and Joseph Horne opened the firm’s first office in 1883, managing agents for the vast Wentworth and Cooper estates in Sydney’s east.
Max had joined the family business in 1950 aged 18, as a messenger boy, switchboard operator and rent collector, rising to become chairman in 1973 until his 2011 retirement.
He was an influential advocate and innovator in the real estate industry, pioneering the growth of suburban real estate offices in the 1960s starting at Double Bay, introducing franchising in the 1970s, and launching into commercial in the 1980s.
Under his guidance, Raine & Horne became a leading brand across Australia and then internationally by the early 1990s.
Over 3000 people are currently part of the Raine & Horne Group, which sold $10bn worth of real estate worldwide in 2022.
“The real estate industry has lost one of its most forceful and influential advocates with the passing of Max Raine,” said Brian Reid, a director of Raine & Horne Group.
Raine is survived by his wife Susan, three daughters, Rebecca, Julia, Georgina, son Angus, 14 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
“At our upcoming state and national awards, we are celebrating 140 years of our business success, and now we will also celebrate my father’s life too,” Angus said.
Raine died in Sydney’s Drayton House aged care facility in Rose Bay, suffering dementia over recent years. His funeral details are yet to be announced.
Many among his vast connections would receive polite penned notes through the years. The Sell certainly got many a supportive advisory, along with an open invitation to join him and Susan whenever holidaying at Terrigal over summer.
The agency slogan “Raine & Horne — we’ll look after you” will endure.
BOWRAL’S COTTAGE INDUSTRY
Hotelier Marty Downs has listed the Bowral cottage Annandale.
The property has been listed with an April 6 expressions of interest campaign and a guide of $5 million to $5.5 million through Corina Nesci, who has opened the Highlands office in the Southern Highlands having previously been the top seller at Drew Lindsay Real Estate.
The 1870s cottage sits on a 2093sq m Merrigang St holding.
Nesci calculates that as short-term accommodation it could gross about $160,000 as three dwellings. There are six bedrooms in total.
Set amid century-old cool-climate plantings, the recently restored Annandale has 12-foot ceilings, wide hallways and traditional fireplaces, and is within walking distance of the main street.
Got a real estate news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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