Sydney property: why Nicole Kidman, Alan Joyce and George Michael starred in 2023
Not withstanding five interest rate rises this year, a range of celebrity names featured in some big sales on Sydney’s north shore this year.
Not withstanding five interest rate rises this year, northside property has been in high demand. Off-the-plan units for downsizers proved hugely popular and trophy home buyers looked west and north for value, pushing prices up and breaking records as they went.
LOWER NORTH SHORE
Sydney’s lower north shore saw celebrity sales and big demand for downsizer units.
Author Liane Moriarty paid $19.5m for a five-bedroom house on Mosman’s Balmoral slopes this year and actor and friend Nicole Kidman bought her sixth apartment in the same Milsons Point apartment block.
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Moriarty, who relocated with her family from the upper north shore, has had several of her nine novels turned into TV series and Kidman has starred in two of them, Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies.
Filming is now under way for a third book to be adapted for the screen, The Last Anniversary.
Kidman and her husband Keith Urban bought a three-bedroom unit in the Latitude block, paying $7.725m for the apartment and creating a family enclave in the harbourside block.
Lock up and leave apartments in Mosman have proved super popular this year with local downsizers looking for convenience and comfort.
An off-the-plan development in Myahgah Rd called Reverie sold out in two hours with downsizers competing for the 20 units being built by Helm.
CBRE director Tim Rees said he opened the sales suite at 8am and by 10am all the units had gone with the penthouse selling for more than $15m – the highest price paid for a unit in Mosman. Reverie will be completed in 2025.
The top sale of the year in Mosman was the $21m waterfront that former Qantas chief Alan Joyce and his husband Shane Lloyd sold in July via Ray White Lower North Shore’s David Gillan and Geoff Smith.
The couple never actually lived in the trophy home with private jetty, berths and netted sea pool but they did extensively renovate the Musgrave St property, which they had purchased in March last year for $19m.
NORTHERN BEACHES
Sydney’s northern beaches is known for its prestige property in Palm Beach at one end and Manly at the other, but this year it was the semi-rural interior of the northern beaches hitting the headlines.
Terrey Hills reset its residential real estate record by millions with the $24.5m sale of a new ranch-style house to cricket’s golden couple Mitchell Starc and Alyssa Healy.
The couple bought the Charlotte Park acreage estate and almost doubled the suburb record in one go.
At the beginning of the year the suburb record was $12m when rugby league commentator and former Australian and NSW captain Brad Fittler sold his acreage.Later in the year another acreage in Terrey Hills sold for $14.1m but that record didn’t stand for long.
Terrey Hills is a suburb undergoing huge change with a new 84-bed private hospital opening next year, council considering a $14m application to refurbish a flower market and add a microbrewery, and private schools eyeing land for sports fields.
Of course, Palm Beach property is always newsworthy. The oceanfront house at 333 Whale Beach Rd known as George Michael’s house sold for $13.5m – a Palm Beach oceanfront record – in March via BJ Edwards of LJ Hooker Palm Beach.
Michael, of British pop duo Wham!, had summered in the five-bedroom property and extended his stay in Sydney to enjoy the house.
At the other end of the beaches, the charity Royal Far West launched its long-awaited Manly beachfront development Aurora and the units sold like hot cakes.
One 212sq m unit sold for $16m – that’s $75,000 per square metre and a record for Manly.
The 58 units were being grabbed primarily by downsizing locals wanting a beach view and central Manly position.
They were also being sold on a 99-year lease with the sales allowing the children’s charity to continue its work.
The $107m project is the biggest for Manly in years.
UPPER NORTH SHORE
The upper north shore saw a surge of record sales as trophy home hunters looked west to Longueville and north to Warrawee for family homes.
Agents commented that suddenly suburbs such as Northwood and Longueville were on home buyers’ lists as they were priced out of the lower north shore.
The big sale of the year was in April – $20.5m for 28 Chilton Pde, Warrawee, at the time the highest sale north of St Leonards.
Gary Ward of Century 21 Turramurra said the private schools of Abbotsleigh and Knox were big magnets for families with school-aged children and the Chilton Pde estate with floating tennis court above an eight-car garage overlooked the Knox Grammar playing fields.
He added that the average block size in Warrawee was 1500sq m and there were more tennis courts in the Warrawee/Wahroonga pocket than anywhere else in the country.
Longueville, meanwhile, saw its suburb record broken several times this year.
Currently, the record is $23.5m for a house in Arabella St that sold in September through Tavis Standen, of Standen Estate Agents, but there have been five sales north of $17m in the second half of the year and two years ago there were only two sales of more than $11m.
Buyers have been drawn to the big blocks, views of the city and ferry access.
Killara also has a new benchmark with a $19m Springdale Rd sale through Lisa Davies of Ray White Upper North Shore in May.
The big listing for the year on the upper north shore though is Walter Burley Griffin’s Coppins on Telegraph Rd, the last and largest domestic house the famous designer of Canberra ever built.
Alex Mintorn, of Pello, says prospective buyers have likened it to a luxury hotel or converted palace.
Word is the historic home on 5640sq m of land could be a contender for a north shore record.
Expressions of interest close on December 19, so that is a result for next year
Originally published as Sydney property: why Nicole Kidman, Alan Joyce and George Michael starred in 2023
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