Lights, camera, sell: Claudia Karvan makes good on the property boom

Claudia Karvan may not have intended her latest property play to coincide with the latest quarterly jump of 5.3 per cent in Sydney’s median property price, but her timing couldn’t be better.

Why would you wait? The Reserve Bank of Australia hasn’t managed to stop house prices from rebounding despite a dozen interest rate rises since May last year, given an official cash rate of 4.1 per cent the RBA might win out yet.

The Bondi Beach apartment being sold by Claudia Karvan last traded in 1998 for $190,000.Credit: Domain

Karvan, the star of Stan series Bump and recent recipient of an Order of Australia, put two apartments to the market this week, both slated to go under the hammer on August 26 through BresicWhitney’s Brigitte Blackman.

Claudia Karvan was awarded an Order of Australia earlier this year.Credit: Wolter Peeters

There is a one-bedder investment pad in Redfern – the same suburb Karvan lives in – that she purchased in 2014, for $610,000.

Initially purchased for her mother, it was recently leased until the departure of the tenant prompted the sale plans. Buyers have been given a guide of $600,000.

Then there’s the Bondi Beach apartment in an art deco block that was long home to Karvan’s late biological father, Peter Robins.

The Redfern apartment was purchased by Claudia Karvan in 2014 for $610,000.Credit: Domain

Robins had purchased it in 1998 for $190,000, but died last year, aged 81. The one-bedroom spread with a sunroom is on offer for $950,000.

Palm Beach life

Sydney University Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson and her businessman husband, OneVentures’ Roger Massy-Greene, have purchased an apartment for $3.225 million across the road from their long-held Palm Beach holiday home.

Belinda Hutchinson is Chancellor of the University of Sydney.Credit: Louie Douvis

Christie’s Shane Clinton would not comment on the deal, but records show it is one of two apartments he has sold recently in the mixed-use development originally spearheaded by developer Greg Walker before administrators were appointed.

It was sold by the mortgagee.

Meanwhile, in nearby Newport, Chris and Julieann Boffa, of the hairdressing family, have purchased a beachfront house for $13 million through McGrath’s James Baker.

The couple’s purchase on the surf beach follows the sale of their home last month on the Pittwater side of the peninsula for $14.25 million to Annie Cannon-Brookes, the estranged wife of tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who owns the $24.5 million mansion next door, which was built by Jennifer Hawkins and her husband Jake Wall.

The beachfront house in Newport sold for $13 million to Chris and Julieann Boffa, of the hairdressing family.Credit: Domain

Silver in Wahroonga

Education entrepreneur Charlotte Chou became somewhat of a cautionary tale on the risks of doing business in China in 2008 when she was taken from her Guangzhou home late at night by police and forcibly kept awake for four nights until she signed a confession that was later used against her.

Claremont, a grand six-bedroom house in Wahroonga with a tennis court and pool, has been sold by Charlotte Chou.Credit: Domain

Questionable charges of embezzlement saw her jailed for more than six years despite her case being raised by Australian officials throughout that time. She was eventually released in late 2014 to return to Sydney and be reunited with her children.

Charlotte Chou, pictured in 2015, soon after her release from more than six years in a detention centre in China.Credit: Amanda Hoh

This week brought happier news for Chou when her Wahroonga home sold for $13.588 million, making it the suburb’s second-highest house sale.

The six-bedroom residence with tennis court and pool, known as Claremont, last traded in 2006 for $3.37 million when sold by the late IVF pioneer Geoffrey Driscoll and his widow Jan.

It was purchased by Suqing Zhen, a co-director with businessman Wu Ruimou of the Fortuneland Investment company.

Density matters in Rose Bay

As much of Sydney’s political class look to high-density living as a means of easing the housing crisis, foreign exchange dealer Tony Collick and his partner Sandy Jan have gone for something more low-density on the Rose Bay waterfront.

Lapin House was built in 1952 to a design by architect Neville Gruzman and long owned by former High Court judge Michael Kirby.

Collick purchased the modernist residence, Lapin House, for $16.6 million in 2020 and in the three years since then has coughed up another $20 million acquiring all five apartments in the block behind his house.

No sooner did he settle on the last of those apartments this month than he has lodged a development application to demolish the block to build a three-storey residence designed by MHN Design Union, to be connected to Lapin House by a walkway.

Given the estimated cost of that development application is almost $8 million, that effectively turns six homes into one at a cost of almost $45 million, assuming there’s no blow out in costs.

Banker’s cushy landing

Whale Beach-based Macquarie AirFinance’s chairman Stephen Cook and his wife Jennifer have emerged as recent $17.2 million buyers in McMahons Point.

The McMahons Point apartment was listed for $15 million but ended up selling for $17.2 million.Credit: Domain

The couple purchased the two-level apartment in Point House of former Walker Corp chairman Bill Loewenthal, ending his 24 years of ownership since he purchased it for $4 million.

Parramatta Eels player Mitchell Moses is swapping Ryde for Gladesville.Credit: Mark Metcalfe

McGrath’s Peter Chauncy had a $15 million guide on it before he sold it at least two weeks before its scheduled auction.

Ticket to Ryde

Parramatta Eels player Mitchell Moses has set an August 19 auction on the Ryde house he purchased two years ago for $2.8 million.

The Federation bungalow has been gutted and renovated throughout during Moses’s ownership, with new kitchen and a recently reinstated swimming pool, and returns to the market with an advertised guide of $2.95 million.

Moses looks to be headed to Gladesville, where he purchased a four-bedroom house in 2020 for $1.8 million.