The Sell: TV star makes a move – but not far
Popular comedian, actor and TV presenter Julia Zemiro and her partner, real estate agent Carsten Prien, have found a buyer for their Bowral home as they upgrade in the Southern Highlands.
NSW
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Popular comedian, actor and TV presenter Julia Zemiro and her partner, real estate agent Carsten Prien, have found a buyer for their Bowral home as they upgrade in the Southern Highlands.
Their former abode went under offer last week at an undisclosed price, having cost $1.15m in 2016.
The Danish-born Prien, who works at the Duncan Hill agency, held the listing for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house.
It had been on the market for nine months, during which there was an increase in the price guide from $1.95m to about $2.2m.
Prior to its listing, the residence had undergone an overhaul, including a new heating and cooling system. There is approval for an extension.
Backing on to Mittagong Creek, the 1658sq m property boasts an expansive garden with a studio and shed.
Zemiro and Prien, who she met on a plane while travelling to Denmark for the 2014 Eurovision song contest, have bought a bigger nearby homestead in the heart of Old Bowral. It was bought last August for $2.525m, having been first listed in 2022 for $2.85m. It is master-built with four bedrooms.
Best known for from TV’s RocKwiz, Fisk and Home Delivery, Zemiro is set to host Crime Night!, a comedy true-crime panel show on the ABC. It will be filmed with a rotating panel of comedians and criminologists examining real-life cases.
After moving from Aix-en-Provence, in France, aged two, she was raised in Bondi by her high school teacher mother and French restaurateur father, and then talent-spotted by Andrew Denton at Belvoir Street’s Theatre Sports and drafted into The Money or The Gun TV comedy/talk show series.
Zemiro then spent a decade in Melbourne, where she mostly lived at Northcote.
She had previously owned property in the 1930s Ellington complex on Rosemont Ave, Woollahra, which was bought in 2014 for $1,641,000 and sold in 2019 for $2.61m.
ACTOR AND APARTMENT NO LONGER BELONG TOGETHER
Fresh from announcing the end to her 33-year stay on Home & Away, actor Lynne McGranger and partner Paul McWaters are selling their long-held Sydney investment property.
The Hills-based couple have had the Kensington investment for 18 years, buying the two-level apartment in 2007 for $472,000 – a year after the Academie complex was completed.
The fourth-floor Anzac Pde apartment spans 90sq m with two bedrooms, one bathroom and a balcony with north-facing views of the city skyline.
Set between Carlton St and Goodwood St, it also has parking for two cars.
The apartment was for rent at $670 a week in 2022, with the current amount estimated at about $800 a week.
Mark Taylor, from Taylors Property Management Specialists, has a $1.1m guide for its August 9 auction.
Two-bedroom apartment prices in Kensington have increased by 5 per cent in the past year to a $1.1m median after 75 sales, according to PropTrack.
They have spent a median 53 days on market.
The last sale in the tightly held 2006 complex was another two- bedroom apartment in May last year at $1.13m.
McGranger and McWaters, who have been together for four decades, have a home in Glenhaven that they bought for $915,000 in 2011.
The four-bedroom home sits on 1075sq m.
They’ve been Hills-based for decades, having previously owned in Kellyville where they sold for $707,500 in 2011, having paid $520,000 nine years earlier.
McGranger, 72, joined Home & Away in 1993, five years after the series began, and is credited as the longest-serving female cast member of a TV soapie in Australia.
She took over the role of Irene Roberts from Jacquy Phillips.
McGranger will farewell Summer Bay next month after finishing filming in March.
Fans can submit a personalised farewell to her at goodbyeirene.com.au, a website set up by Channel 7.
In 2021, McGranger published a memoir Acting Up: Me, Myself And Irene. She was originally a primary school teacher who trained as an actor at the Riverina College of Advanced Education, in Wagga Wagga.
McGranger will be on a nationwide tour with The Grandparents Club – a musical comedy alongside Wayne Scott-Kermond, Meredith O’Reilly and Andrew James – until November.
CHANGE OF PLAN FOR STAR ROOSTER AND MODEL WIFE
Injured Sydney Rooster Nat Butcher and his model wife Harmony pulled their Matraville new-build duplex offering from its scheduled Saturday morning auction on Friday.
They will instead put it in the rental market.
The five-bedroom, three-bathroom home was listed after being built by FutureFlip with McGrath Coogee agent Marnie Seinor giving a $2.8m guide.
The couple, with one-year-old son Beau, were already retaining next door as their family home.
The couple are likely to seek tenants at around $2650 a week.
The Windsor St home, with pool, had over 2300 views on realestate.com.au over its three-week auction campaign. There were around 200 views of the marketing video on the McGrathTV YouTube channel.
The Butchers bought the 720sq m property in 2021 for $2.71m through Seinor when it was a substantial two-level house with over 15m frontage.
FutureFlip, run by developer Neil Hipwell, built two side-by-side homes in just 10 months.
Each have five bedrooms, a kitchen with Caeserstone benchtops, and a living room with a modern gas fireplace in a feature wall.
The living space opens to a rear lawn and an in-ground pool.
Harmony, a model represented by Chic Management, documented the building journey to her 91,000 Instagram followers.
“Quality is important to us; we didn’t want to compromise on the build or finishes.”
She advised she especially loves the high ceilings, the open fireplace and the sunken lounge.
Nat, who recently suffered a recurrence of an MCL strain in training, is likely to be set to play in round 22.
Matraville has proven a popular pocket for new build duplexes by footballers.
Former Sydney Swan Luke Parker and his interior decorator wife, Kate Lawrence, developed a duplex in 2022. South Sydney Rabbitohs captain Cameron Murray is a few months off completion of his duplex with fiancee Miranda Cross.
RESORT BUY IS A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN
Manly-based wedding photographer Jimmy Raper and his wedding planner wife, Sophie Sliepenbeek, have emerged as the buyers of Sun Ranch, the luxury Byron Bay hinterland resort.
Along with articles from Wallpaper, British GQ and Vogue, Sun Ranch, at Coopers Shoot, has been ranked as one of the “top 24 places to visit in the world” by Conde Nast Traveller magazine.
Opened in September 2023, it was sold by a syndicate fronted by the self-described “accidental hotelier” Jamie Blakey along with Julia Ashwood and her husband, gallery owner Matty Rabbidge.
The co-founder of P.E Nation, Claire Greaves, was also in the syndicate. The sale took a while, as the luxury 17-bedroom, 12-bathroom estate came with $20m-plus hopes in January 2024 when billed as a destination hinterland alternative to the beachfront Raes on Wategos.
Towards its mid-June sale, there was interest at about $15m, with the land component of the 22ha holding registered this week at $9.25m. The total walk-in, walk-out sale price, including the Sun Ranch brand, has not been revealed.
The staff have been retained.
Its been a busy time for Raper and Sliepenbeek, whose “flawless Italian wedding celebration at the stunning Hotel Il Pellicano”, on the Argentario coast was published in the June Vogue Australia issue.
During the festivities, the bride wore Leah Da Gloria, Zuhair Murad and Balykina dresses, while the groom was in a Mawson Ossa tuxedo.
EX-WALLABY SCORES $5M PENTHOUSE
Former Wallaby Stephen Lidbury and wife Joanne have bought a luxury $5m Queenscliff apartment.
It is the three-bedroom, three-bathroom penthouse atop the Verse complex on Aitken Ave.
The two-level apartment with lift access into the home is in a triplex on the grassy reserve opposite Manly Lagoon.
It has 416sq m on title with 170sq m internal space with plenty of blackbutt and polished concrete. Backed by the Scarf and Joseph families, the four-storey complex was developed to its Breakspear Architects-design by Re-form Projects.
The ground floor three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment sold for $5.6m last year with 200sq m internal space and 304sq m on title.
Having been educated at Pittwater High School, Lidbury was a formidable player for the Newport Subbies and then Warringah.
He played just two Tests, initially in the 1987 tour of Argentina and then against England in its 1988 tour of Australia.
He switched codes to rugby league for the Canberra Raiders in 1989 but injury prevented his NRL debut.
He was last in the property pages selling several homes around Mosman.
Lidbury is on the executive team of the cleaning and security services company, Millennium Hi-Tech.
SILVERCHAIR STAR’S SELL-OFF
Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns only wants half of his Merewether building site so has listed the redundant 967sq m Charlotte St block through local agent Kirk Langlands, whose marketing makes no secret of the celebrity listing.
“Rock legend Daniel Johns searched across the country for somewhere new to call home,” it advised.
Johns, who purchased in 2000 for $1.4m, demolished the house two months ago.
HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH RECORDS
The six-bedroom, six-bathroom home on two hectares at McLeod Rd, Middle Dural has been sold for an undisclosed record-breaking price – the highest sale in Hills District history.
It thereby betters the neighbouring $14m sale in 2023.
Christie’s Darren Curtis and Manor’s William Brush had given $15m to $16.5m guidance.
The 2017 house cost $3.5m after the $2.3m land purchase in 2014 by the Kolivos family.
SMART MOVE BY GANDELS
Melbourne’s Gandel family has bought an $8.25m three-bedroom, three bathroom Bellevue Hill penthouse.
It is atop the Acacia complex with views over Cooper Park towards the Harbour Bridge.
The 294sq m apartment, near the Victoria and Old South Head roads intersection, was designed by Urban Possible and SMART Design.
It was first sold off the plan by Denwol in 2021 at $7.3m
Got a property news tip? Email jonathan.chancellor@news.com.au
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