The Sell: Ryan Kwanten lists long-held Manly studio
True Blood actor Ryan Kwanten is selling a long-held northern beaches investment after 25 years ownership.
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Actor Ryan Kwanten is selling a long-held northern beaches investment after 25 years ownership.
The True Blood star bought the Manly studio apartment in 1999 when he was playing lifeguard Vinnie Patterson on the long running Home & Away. He paid $162,000 for the 28sq m unit, two years after he made his debut in Summer Bay following appearances on A Country Practice and Hey Dad.
The SAG Award nominee is set to star in the upcoming movie Primitive War alongside Tricia Helfer and Jeremy Piven. The sci-fi horror, based on the novel by Ethan Pettus, is set in Vietnam in 1968. It is about a recon unit known as Vulture Squad being sent to an isolated jungle valley to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon.
Kwanten’s unit is on the ground floor of the Regents Court complex, just south of the Manly Wharf.
The Addison Rd studio is being marketed by Rob Hedges of Sweetnams Real Estate as having excellent rental yield potential. The last time it was advertised for rent was in 2018 at $420 a week. It has been recently repainted and carpeted.
Studios currently are available at between $390 per week on Birkley Rd and $625 per week on Sydney Rd. Manly apartments typically rent out for a record $900 per week, reflecting an annual rental yield of 3 per cent, according to PropTrack.
The mid-1970s built block, with a swimming pool, has only had one studio sale this year, two doors along from Kwanten’s, that fetched $550,000.
Kwanten moved to California in 2004 and lives at Venice Beach with his partner, nutritionist and health coach Ashley Sisino.
Kwanten will still retain a foothold in the Sydney market as, since 2017, he’s owned an investment in Balgowlah. He paid $1m for that two-bedroom apartment.
HOLLYWOOD CONNECTION WITH BALMAIN VIEWS
Actor Rebel Wilson pulled her Balmain investment property from its scheduled weekend auction.
The top floor apartment hit the market in May with a $2.3m guide, and then her CobdenHayson listing agent, and younger sister, Anna Wilson, was briefly advising $2.2m.
The auction got pushed back from mid-June to July, but quite possibly the star tunes in to CobdenHayson chief Matthew Hayson’s gloomier by-the-week video market update where he advised mid-week of a below 50 per cent success rate.
Located on Reynolds St, the two-bedroom apartment now has a $2.3m asking price.
Wilson purchased the apartment – in the Lever Brothers soap factory heritage conversion project site – off the plan for $1.88m in 2015.
It comes with striking artwork in the study showing The Beverly Hills hotel.
It is spread over two levels with 130sq m space. It was marketed as a house-like apartment on Punch Park.
Wilson stayed in it while renovating her former home in Birchgrove which she sold in 2022 for $9.5m.
Wilson has a penchant for property on the Balmain peninsula, with her family also owning there through the decades. She still retains a nearby property after her investment company paid $3.6m in 2022 for a four-bedroom home.
There are also homes in London and Hollywood, where she and partner Ramona Agruma are raising their daughter Royce.
Wilson recently listed her home office and guest house in West Hollywood for sale at $US4.15m ($6.24m).
“I love real estate, so I thought, ‘If I need an office, I’ll make it an investment,” Wilson told The Wall Street Journal last month.
She paid $2.95m for it in 2016, but is now “downsizing” to a smaller office space because she is spending more time at home with Royce.
Built in 2015, the gated holding comes with a saltwater pool, hot tub and an outdoor fireplace.
It is being sold through listing agent Tracy Tutor of Douglas Elliman.
There is a Jack and Jill bedroom among its five bedrooms.
Wilson, 44, converted the garage into a gym with a pink-neon sign that reads “Rebel Gym”.
CHANGES ON TRACK AS BOHO-STYLE WOOLLAHRA HOME FETCHES $7.65M
The boho 1880s Woollahra home of fashion designer Camilla Franks has been bought by Inland Rail boss Nick Miller and Emily Smith.
They paid $7.65m for the five-bedroom home that hit the market in March with $8m hopes, which was revised to $7m. It attracted more than 7500 page views on realestate.com.au during its marketing.
Franks bought her Edgecliff Rd home in 2016 for $3,868,430, then installed a sanctuary-style garden with pool, fire pit and pizza oven.
It sits above Woollahra’s ghost railway station, which was partly constructed in the early 1970s, before being abandoned due to cost overruns and continuing local opposition.
The queen of the kaftan has bought at Bondi for around $12.5m, upsizing to the Federation mansion Gnal-Loa, which was sold by Barrenjoey investment bank partner Ben Scott and his wife, Pensiri, who had bought it for $10.1m in 2021.
Franks has said the move “felt like a new chapter” and, having founded the Camilla brand 20 years ago in Bondi, was “coming full circle”.
Her company got a capital injection from billionaires Andrew and Nicola Forrest in 2023, when they bought a 25 per cent stake.
Franks, who snared a cameo appearance in HBO TV hit series The White Lotus, which also featured her designs, is the creative director of the business.
Gnal-Loa, her grand sandstone Federation on a sizeable 1015sq m Bondi holding, consists of four bedrooms and three bathrooms with parking for three cars. There’s development approval for a new parents’ wing and 60sq m guesthouse, designed by Kelvin Ho of Akin Atelier architects, plus plans for a pool and outdoor entertainment area by Myles Baldwin Design.
Meanwhile, Smith has put her Moncur St, Woollahra, house up for $3500 per week rental through Rose and Jones.
The four bedroom Victorian terrace was bought for $2,675,000 in 2014.
BUILDER’S $11M FOR STUNNER IN THE HILLS
Builder Steve Mallinger has sold his Middle Dural home.
The Cranstons Rd property fetched $11m, about six weeks after its expressions-of-interest sale closed, which included 15,500 page views on realestate.com.au.
The sale of the six-bedroom, six-bathroom home – through McGrath NorthWest agent Louis Stapleton – represents the highest price for the Hills District so far this year.
The buyer was from the inner west.
The house – spanning five pavilions – was designed by Andrew Donaldson and built by Mallinger Constructions.
It is set within gardens by Rolling Stone Landscapes, with a championship-sized tennis court and a heated pool by Crystal Pools.
The building block was bought in 2018 for $2.35m.
The Mallinger family, who plan to stay in the area either building or renovating another home, have been undertaking high-quality constructions for more than five decades.
The former Cranstons farming estate at Middle Dural is a hotspot for luxury home builds with only a few remnants of its 1860s pioneering times.
The neighbourhood experienced a $14m Hills District record last June for a vast 19-room mansion – designed by American architect John Henry – on its 2.02ha McLeod Rd holding.
It had been built by Mirma Property Group, with some 1300sq m living space. The building block had cost $2.5m in 2016.
BULLDOGS STAR TAKES HIT ON TOWNHOUSE
Canterbury Bulldogs prop Liam Knight has taken a $150,000 loss on his Vaucluse townhouse investment after pocketing $1,475,000 after its midweek settlement.
Knight, who has played nine for the Bulldogs this season, bought the three-level townhouse for $1,625,000 in January last year when he was still at the Rabbitohs.
It has been sold to industrial designer Jackson Senes and his partner, Summer Harrison.
Built in the early 2000s, it had previously sold for $1.18m in 2014.
Following Knight’s late-season departure to Canterbury, the townhouse was offered as a $1110-a- week tenancy.
The Old South Head Rd home – which has three bedrooms, one bathroom and a courtyard garden – had an initial $1.55m asking price. It then had a $1.4m buyer’s guide price.
It suggests Knight, who has done modelling shoots for the Australian men’s streetwear fashion brand La Haute, may have overpaid to buy into the block of nine that sits close to Christison Park.
CoreLogic’s recent Pain & Gain report, which looked at short-term, loss-making resales in the first quarter of 2024, revealed just 3 per cent of transactions in the Woollahra municipality recorded a loss at a $250,000 median cost.
It was 3.9 per cent at a $83,000 median cost in the last quarter of 2023.
LITTLE APPETITE FOR EATERY SPOT
The former Paddington premises of dining institution Lucio’s, now Civico 47, was passed in at weekend auction on a $6.25 million vendor bid having had just two bidders.
The 195sq m Windsor St building last traded for $3.75 million in early 2020 to a syndicate that included Peter Lew and Nicole Galloway from the Chinese restaurant Fei Jai.
Auctioneer Damien Cooley told the crowd it had a $222,000 net passing annual income.
LARGE DROP IN PRICING FLOOR
The St Margaret’s Surry Hills apartment of actor Emma Lung and her video director husband Henry Zalapa has fetched $1.655 million.
It came after Ray White Eastern Beaches took over from BresicWhitney, who had initially listed it in March last year at $2.2 million.
The large gap in expectation was over estimations of the value of its approved extra floor.
The Bourke St property cost $1.25 million in 2020.
LIFESAVER AIMS TO REEL IN $5M
Former Bondi Rescue lifesaver Bobby “Yak” Yaldwyn has relisted his North Bondi home, hoping Raine & Horne agent Ric Serrao gets $5 million.
The three-level semi was unsuccessfully listed with $4.5 million hopes through his out of area conjunctional agent Jason Boon early last year.
Yaldwyn, who now runs emergency first aid training courses, bought for $4.48 million in 2021.
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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