More misery for luckless Opal Towers owners
There’s little good news for the long-suffering owners at western Sydney’s controversial Opal Tower.
The executors of the late interior decorator Garth Barnett’s estate are seeking tenants for both their Opal Tower, Sydney Olympic Park investment apartments.
The high-rise investments were bought in early 2021, some two years after the tower’s cracking calamity.
They were bought to produce income to fund Garth Barnett scholarships for Bachelor of Design in Interior Architecture students.
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The University of Technology Sydney has offered funded scholarships in memory of the self-taught designer and mentor who died suddenly in 2015. They receive between $15,000 and $24,000 paid over two years.
The priciest 3403/1 Brushbox St apartment, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms plus study, cost $1.08m and has been up for $820-a-week rental through Waterpoint Asset Management. It was last up at $570 a week in late 2021.
The 3205/1 Brushbox St apartment, with one bedroom plus study, cost $688,000 and is up for $675-a-week rental. It was last up at $450 a week in late 2020.
The Barnett estate acquisitions are among the few sales since the cracking, both bought from Ecove, the building’s developer which is directed by Bassam Aflak, who is also a Garth Barnett scholarships trustee.
It was Christmas Eve 2018 when the residents were evacuated from the Opal Tower complex which then prompted the ongoing endeavours by consecutive NSW state governments for better strata building construction outcomes.
Some five years on, the original owners are still in misery when it comes to exit prices.
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There’s been just one sale this year, with the sale of a 22nd-floor, three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. There’s been no price disclosure but last month the vendor was seeking $1,075,000, having paid $1.61m off the plan in 2014, likely ranking as the biggest price drop yet in the infamous building.
Last December saw another big loss. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom 23rd-floor apartment fetched $1m, well down on its $1.48m off-the-plan sale in 2014. The 87sq m unit had been on the market for nearly a year.
The only apartment to ever sell for a profit was a damaged 10th floor apartment in 2019, possibly the worst affected within the 392 apartment high-rise after the cracking. It was a one-off purchase by the builder, Icon Co, with its $950,000 sale price some $158,000 more than the $742,000 paid in 2014.
Like the Barnett apartments, a check of recent rentals suggests there has been an improvement in rental incomes for hard-done-by landlords.
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Originally published as More misery for luckless Opal Towers owners
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