The Sell: Michelle Bridges offloads Bowral property, Sam Frost selling in Sydney
After six months on the market Michelle Bridges has finally found a buyer for her luxurious Bowral home, while Bachelorette Sam Frost is selling her former Sydney home. See the pictures.
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Fitness guru Michelle Bridges has finally found a buyer for Summerside, her Southern Highlands home, which has sat on the market since February.
Her Kangaloon estate was initially listed with ambitious $7m guidance through The Agency, but quickly adjusted to $6.5m.
It was then passed in at a March auction at $4.825m, before the listing was given to Ray White Bowral’s Gene Fairbanks and Kathryn Pogson-Pike, who sought $4.6m to $4.8m.
They also had to listen to the market, adjusting their initial guidance to $4.15m to $4.4m, and then more recently tweaking it up to $4.25m-plus, given an uptick in the market.
The “under offer” advisory does not come with any price details.
Bridges bought the five-bedroom property for $2.7m in 2018 when she outbid celebrity chef Luke Mangan.
It has an in-ground pool, tennis court, an artist studio, and its barn-style double garage incorporates a loft bedroom and bathroom, all set in Michael Bligh-designed gardens.
Its sale will see just the two remaining listings at Kangaloon, including Twyning, a quaint cottage offering on 1012sq m on Sugarloaf Lane. There’s also Kia-Ora on 2.6 hectares with landscaping plans by Harriette Conway.
Bridges, the author of 17 books, is believed to be moving back to the city for work, which includes her 12-week body transformation online fitness program, which has transformed more than 450,000 lives whose members have lost over 1.7 million kilograms through exercise, meal plans and mindset lessons.
Her last city base was in Pomeroy, Potts Point, but she sold the apartment for $6.4m in 2020, following her separation from partner, Steve “Commando” Willis, and to escape the paparazzi badgering her in the local Woolworths.
BACHELORETTE STAR MOVES ON FROM SYDNEY LIFE
The Bachelorette Sam Frost, now happily settled with her fiance Jordan Hansen and their newborn son Ted, is selling her former Sydney home.
Frost has listed the Alexandria townhouse to help fund a house purchase, as well as save a bit for their now delayed wedding.
The former Home And Away star and radio presenter – now turned podcaster – was a first-home buyer in 2016 when she paid $1.255m for the townhouse, then listed with $1.1m price guidance.
Now the three-level, three-bedroom home comes with a $1.5m guide for its August 5 BresicWhitney auction. Its nominated sale price would reflect modest growth of around 20 per cent over almost seven years despite the recent renewed property boom. Realestate.com.au suggests Alexandria’s three-bedroom house median sits at $1.82m and $1.43m for apartments, amid what has been a rollercoaster ride for the suburb’s property prices.
The 2002-built townhouse on Euston Road, near Sydney Park, has over 240sq m on title, including the lock-up garage and storage. The ground level has a terrace, and the top floor master with walk-in wardrobe and ensuite has another large terrace.
It became a $1250-a-week rental 12 months ago after the Ferntree Gully-born celebrity returned to Melbourne.
Frost met Hansen, a landscaper, following his appearance on 10’s reality show Australian Survivor, where he starred alongside Frost’s brother Alex.
They became engaged after just five months of dating.
Last week she told Channel 7’s Morning Show they’d put the brakes on locking in a wedding date.
“It is just so expensive,” Frost said. “And we want to buy a house.”
The couple are returning to television next year on Seven with a series of them travelling around Australia in an RV caravan visiting rural towns in a six-part series called Jordie, Sam & Ted’s Rural Roadtrip.
“I’m excited to bring an audience to our adventure – it’s not all Instagram photos and laying on a beach,” Frost said
The aim was “to find the magic in rural towns” she told Melbourne Confidential’s Jackie Epstein after their recent relocation to Noosa.
FORMER MINISTER’S CREMORNE ABODE PASSED IN AGAIN
Having failed last September, former NSW health minister Jillian Skinner and her husband, longtime naval captain Chris, put their Cremorne home to auction again on Saturday with a similar, but cheaper, result.
The house passed in at $4.5m with just the one bidder, an expatriate who has returned to Sydney. The backyard crowd of 30 dwindled to eight as the agents undertook lengthy negotiations inside.
The Harrison St Federation house was offered with a $5.5m guide last year having been bought in 1976 from property legend Ian Hayson for $64,950 by Skinner and her husband, who is active in the push for nuclear-propulsion submarines. They raised their three children at the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home.
Skinner is a trier, having initially unsuccessfully sought to win the North Shore seat three times, including going up against Independents Ted Mack and Robyn Read, but she won the 1994 “Nannygate tax evasion” by-election to replace Philip Smiles.
She then won seven elections, only departing in 2017 ahead of the cabinet reshuffle by then incoming premier Gladys Berejiklian, who was set on installing Brad Hazzard. Denied her prized health portfolio, she triggered a by-election which saw the seat retained by the Liberals’ Felicity Wilson, who went onto buy a Cremorne townhouse for $1.2m.
The marketing of the Skinners’ property this time by De Brennan Property initially advised “the vendor is motivated to sell this property and for this reason has instructed us not to pre-empt the market by quoting a price guide, but rather present offers from buyers so the owner can make an informed decision and sell”.
That tactic soon lapsed, with a $5m advisory, which dropped to $4.5m just two days later.
Realestate.com.au puts Cremorne’s four-bederoom house median at $3.9m, down 11 per cent annually. It peaked at $4,575,000 last May. There have been 10 non-waterfronts sold so far this year topping out at $7.62m on Bertha Rd.
LAKESIDE MANSION UP FOR AUCTION
An incomplete Eraring, Lake Macquarie, trophy home rebuild construction site, once the sought-after trophy home known as Mandalay, has been listed for August 20 auction amid a matrimonial property carve up.
The former luxury six-bedroom, six-bathroom home, with 14-car garage, is listed as a gutted abode that is unlivable. The property sits on a 2.7ha peninsula holding with 481m of waterfront.
Located on Foreshore Street, Nina Sokolov of Raine & Horne holds the listing. It last sold in August 2020 when Compass Helicopters boss Graeme Thomas secured a record sale with six bidders.
It’s $6m purchaser was the Changjin “John” Li-directed One Lake Macquarie Pty Ltd which has been in liquidation since last December through Bradley Tonks, an insolvency partner at PKF.
The NSW Supreme Court ordered liquidation after his now-estranged wife Meihong Yang secured court orders for the appointment of the liquidator.
Property records indicate that One Lake Macquarie owns two properties on Lake Macquarie, including another three doors down which cost $3.1 million in 2021. It is also up for August 20 auction through Sokolov.
There are caveats on the titles, aimed at protecting the interests of Changjin Li, who hails originally from Jiangxi province. Li is the intensely private Point Piper-based Kingland Gold entrepreneur.
One of Li’s caveats was registered noting “fear of improper dealing”.
Its registered financing is through Athena Rose Capital, which is an associated company directed by his former first wife, Changren Cheng.
Justice Kate Williams noted last month there had been an attempted sale to an associate of Li “at an apparent undervalue, immediately prior to the provisional liquidators’ appointment, which they had not permitted to complete”.
In 2020, Changjin Li signed up on extended settlement terms to pay $95m for the Point Piper harbourfront, Edgewater, which still remains under the ownership of the Katies fashion retail founder Joe Brender and the family of his late business partner, Sam Moss.
A HOLIDAY PARADISE IN BYRON BAY
Veteran horse racing boss Henry Plumptre and his wife Michelle are selling their Byron Bay investment property.
The New Zealand-based couple bought the 1920s weatherboard cottage in 2021, when it was known as the Palmiers short-term accommodation offering. They paid $2.75m.
There’s been no need to update the stylish three-bedroom home with separate one-bedroom studio since the Plumptres bought the 475sq m Bangalow Rd holding.
Set behind a high-gabled facade and traditional front veranda, the home has a side entertaining deck with saltwater pool amid tropical landscaped grounds.
First National Byron agent Su Reynolds and Renee Schofield have a $2.95m guide.
The median house price across Byron township sits at $2,377,500, according to PropTrack, up from its $700,000 median a decade ago.
The English-born Plumptre joined the Hamilton, New Zealand-based Cambridge Stud in 2017 as the chief executive under the new owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay, who took over from Sir Patrick and Lady Justine Hogan.
Before their relocation to New Zealand, Henry, the former Australian boss of the Godolphin stables, had called Bellevue Hill and then Mosman home.
PIPER OFFERING ON A HIGH NOTE
Retired adman Geoffrey Cousins and author Darleen Bungey have their Mark Pearse-designed Wolseley Rd, Point Piper home listed from $27.5 million to $30 million.
The Byron Bay-based couple will have their bolthole, the $20 million Paddington Green penthouse, bought from retired real estate agent Peter Ledgerwood.
The Point Piper house cost $10 million in 2007.
BURGESS DEAL ACROSS THE LINE
The Sam Burgess Little Bay apartment sale became official midweek through Martin Farah at NG Farah, having been under offer this time last week.
The retired Rabbitohs champion secured $1,212,500.
He and fiancee Lucy Graham are looking for a new home, but the settlement terms suggest they could be there until after the birth of their first child.
The two-bedroom apartment cost $995,000 off the plan in 2015.
A FINE CANVAS UP FOR GRABS
Artist Mark Hanham has listed in Surry Hills.
His Bourke Street studio will go to auction August 19 through McGrath agent Mark Foy with a $3.3-3.5 million guide.
The 140sq m property cost $2.05 million in 2015.
Its street signage shows it was the base of AF Millier, the taxi meter supplier and repairer.
The building with a sawtooth roof was once rented by the Atlassian Corporation.
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