The Sell: Homes NRL stars splashed cash on in 2022
Despite it being relatively quiet on the property front among the NRL ranks this year, there have been a few standout first home buys, including Knights star Jack Johns, real estate insider Jonathan Chancellor reveals.
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Newcastle Knights player Jack Johns, of the NRL royalty clan, joined the player ranks of homeowners during the 2022 season.
He became a first-home buyer locally when he spent $805,000 on a two-bedroom apartment in Merewether, around 6km from the McDonald Jones Stadium.
The Sell’s end-of-season wrap reports 2022 was relatively quiet on the property front among the NRL ranks this year, somewhat reflecting the overall market trajectory.
There were however a few standout first home buys led by Rabbitohs star Campbell Graham who spent $3.6m on a home in Kensington.
Panthers winger Brian To’o became a first-home buyer, paying $859,000 for a home at Ropes Crossing, and then becoming a hero when he advised it was for his parents.
Roosters captain James Tedesco dropped the most any current NRL player has spent before, paying just over $5m with his fiancee Maria Glinellis for a residence at Hunters Hill.
South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL star Latrell Mitchell went close by spending a record $4.3m at Ramsgate Beach with his wife, Brielle Mercy.
Rabbitohs hooker Damien Cook was a seller, offloading his Miranda investment for $803,000. He had paid $640,000 for the two-bed unit six years ago. It became a $550-a-week rental in 2018 after he traded up to a $1.5m Woolooware home, which he recently renovated.
The Johns Merewether apartment was fully renovated, with new herringbone floors.
It features a U-shaped kitchen with a breakfast bar overlooking the living area, as well as a contemporary bathroom with a stand-alone bath.
It was pitched at couples, downsizers or investors before Johns snapped it up just a week into its marketing, with the price guide between $780,000 and $820,000.
It spans the full length of the top floor of a 1980s-built block of 15.
Johns, who turns 25 later this month, is the son of Knights legend Matty Johns and wife Trish. He was born in Newcastle, and has played for the Knights since 2021 after a move from the Rabbitohs.
Merewether, of course, has been a favoured team hangout, especially back in the days of Barry Bradley being licensee at the Knights’ preferred watering hole, the Burwood Inn.
At one stage in his captaincy, Andrew Johns, Jack’s uncle, owned at three properties in the suburb.
Matty held two properties, selling for $955,000 on Curry Street in 2002 and at $1.035m on Lloyd Street in 2004. Matty, a Fox Sports host of The Matty Johns show, has been based on the Northern Beaches for almost two decades. Jack played his junior rugby league for the Harbord United Devils.
BAD-BOY PROP’S PARTY HOUSE FOR LEASE
The infamous pandemic party house of former St George Dragon prop Paul Vaughan has been put up for lease, given his relocation to the UK.
It’s the Shellharbour home where Vaughan hosted 12 teammates in July last year for a barbecue in contravention of health rules.
After breaking the biosecurity rules of the NRL and NSW government, Vaughan was banned for eight games and fined $50,000, then having his contract terminated, just five games off playing 100 games for the club.
His St George teammates, some of whom scampered away into the night to evade the police, incurred fines totalling $305,000 under Covid lockdown laws that have now been pretty much scrapped.
Vaughan, who went on to play 24 games for the Canterbury Bulldogs this year, has signed on at the Super League club Warrington.
He’s seeking $1395 a week for the home, with the listing advising it will be available in November.
Signalling the 31-year-old prop’s plans overseas, the home was advertised for a six-month minimum, but with up to two years available.
Located just one street back from the ocean, the five-bedroom home features a central family room, dining and kitchen, which opens through bi-fold doors to an alfresco overlooking the pool, recently retiled with sandstone-look pavers.
It adjoins a cabana, spa, and cubby house on the 675sq m block.
Vaughan paid $1.382m for the renovated 1960s-built home.
BREAKFAST ON THE BEACH
The former face of Channel V, model Carissa Walford, now a neuro-linguistic programming practitioner in Byron Bay, is selling her Northern Beaches apartment.
The one-bedroom 67sq m Dee Why unit, which has been a rental for much of her ownership, has been listed through Ratcliff Mathews agent Sandra Wilson.
During her seven-year ownership Walford renovated the bathroom, improved the kitchen, and laid French tiling on the balcony, which she ranked as one of her favourite features of the street-level space.
“Sitting on our balcony for a morning coffee is heaven,” Walford told the Bed Threads blog in 2019.
Walford, who labelled it a “Zen den”, has been recently offline in India, not posting to her 42,000 Instagram followers in six weeks.
She burst on to TV screens as the face of Channel V at 23 years old in 2011. It was the year she had also played a one-show role on the long-running Home And Away.
Walford, who had been a Wests Tigers’ cheerleader, had ranked in the top 10 of Miss Universe Australia in 2009.
During her time at Channel V, she did interviews with the likes of Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chelsea Handler and Cara Delevingne.
Bringing in over $500 a week, the Pacific Parade apartment cost $560,000 in 2015.
Now dating Byron local Zac Kennedy, from The General Store, Walford runs courses on the subconscious mind.
Realestate.com.au calculates Dee Why’s one-bedroom median price at $767,500, up 13 per cent in the past year after some 120 sales. Some 24 Dee Why one-bedders have been listed in the past month.
HEALTHY INTEREST IN CLOVELLY
Nutritionist entrepreneur Sally Obermeder, who was recently lamenting to her 137,000 Instagram followers just how much she’d put into storage on her last move three years ago, has snapped up a townhouse in Sydney’s east.
The former TV presenter and her husband Marcus have spent $2.656m in Clovelly.
Pitched as being in a European-inspired gated complex by its JT Allen marketing, the home, near Varna Park, was built in the late 1990s to take advantage of alfresco living. The main outdoor space off the downstairs living and kitchen area features in-built seating and a barbecue zone.
There’s a second level terrace off the master bedroom with ocean views – one of three bedrooms in the two-level home. It was snapped up three weeks into its marketing, having last sold for $1.52m in 2015.
Obermeder retains an apartment in Bondi, bought for $580,000 in 2007, which recently became a $990-a-week rental.
Last year, she spent $1.405m on an investment around the corner.
Obermeder founded the lifestyle website and online supplement store SWIISH with her sister, author Maha Koraiem, in 2013, after coming up with the idea while recovering from cancer.
Marcus, who has a background in finance after working at Citibank and NAB, joined the SWIISH team in 2016 as the director of strategy, and is now the company’s chief financial officer.
Sally had spent 16 years as co-host of The Daily Edition before her departure from Channel 7 in 2021.
Meanwhile, Sally’s sister Maha has sold in Cremorne.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom, St Regis apartment on Sutherland Street had $1.3m hopes, having cost $645,000 in 2007.
CHIN CHIN TO A JUICY SALE
Chris Lucas, the Melbourne-based restaurateur behind the Chin Chin chain, has sold his Potts Point bolthole, which was bought for $3.4m shortly before he opened in Surry Hills in 2017.
Lucas, who resides in Toorak with longtime partner Sarah Lew, was seeking $6m for the two-bedroom apartment in the 2015-built SJB Architects-designed Wylde St block.
With views to the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Garden Island dry dock, the apartment sold pre-auction at an undisclosed price through Raine & Horne Unlimited.
The newest arrival in the lower Potts Point precinct is Jonathan Barthelmess, the co-owner of the local restaurant The Apollo, who recently sold his Darling Point apartment. Barthelmess paid $5.75m for the 230sq m four-bedroom apartment in the tightly held Spanish Mission Bellevue Gardens complex.
It sits amid plans for the proposed major redevelopment of the Garden Island facility. Locals say the proposal includes replacement of the eight-storey Kuttabul accommodation building.
UNDER THE ODDS
Professional punter Lincoln Holgate has relisted his three-storey riverfront residence at Hunters Hill.
The Mayfield Ave home was built three years ago by the low-profile 58-year-old punting veteran.
The five-bedroom, five-bathroom home with a jetty, pontoon, boat shed and mooring pen for 17.4m vessel goes to November 5 McGrath auction.
The abode, with 585sq m internal space over three levels, failed to sell when listed earlier this year with $23m- to-$25m price guidance.
No official price has yet come from its new listing agent Tracey Dixon, but you’d punt it won’t still be that much given the overall market deterioration, which her boss John McGrath puts at 15 per cent.
That would put it around the early $20m mark.
PLUSH PAD
Fintech executive Robert Coulter and wife Tatiana have sold their Pyrmont penthouse for $6.2m, some 18 months after it was listed with a $6.5m price guide.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom penthouse is in the Alex Tzannes-designed Stonecutters building on Tambua Street.
The Coulters, who have relocated to their Oberon Black truffle farm on the western fringe of the Blue Mountains, had paid $2.85m in 2015.
It first sold at $3.25m in 2007.
Jackson Landing community facilities include 24-hour security, indoor and outdoor pools, gym and tennis courts.
Realestate.com.au calculate the suburb’s median three-bedroom apartment as $2.625m, down 4.5 per cent over the past year.
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