Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui’s childhood Point Piper home sells ahead of auction

Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui’s childhood home in Point Piper sold ahead of auction, while a Haberfield Federation home smashed through its $2.7m reserve.

The Federation home on Hawthorne Parade, Haberfield, comfortably beat its reserve price of $2.7m,

The price was not revealed in the weekend’s dearest capital city deal, when a hillside house in Point Piper sold ahead of its scheduled auction. It was the childhood home of Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui which hit the market with an $8.8m price guide last month.

Lui’s parents, paediatrician professor Kei Lui and his wife Ellen, bought the home on Dunara Gardens for $1.8m in 2000 from investment banker and Yellow Brick Road co-founder Bryan Davies, and his then wife, fashion designer Rebecca Davies.

The Airtasker job services website was created in one of its four bedrooms.

–

Family affair

Sydney auctions saw the Smithers sisters sell in Haberfield for $3,202,500, well above the $2.7m reserve they gave to McGrath agent Michael Tringali. The online auction of the Hawthorne Parade offering took 48 minutes after the $2.6m opening bid for the Federation home, being sold for the first time. It was listed by Sue, Christine and Joy, having been the home of their parents Len and Alice in the 1970s.

The 1910 parkside home was built by their great grandmother, Kezia Miller, who was named after her convict ancestor, gardening labourer Kezia Brown, who was convicted of stealing clothing from her Gloucester, England, employer and then sentenced in 1790 to seven years’ jail in Australia.

–

Active Adelaide

They weren’t all tidying up their sock draw during lockdown in Adelaide, as suggested by South Australia’s chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier.

Adelaide had the nation’s highest weekend success rate at 96 per cent, but from just the 23 results, according to realestate.com.au. There had been 83 auctions scheduled for Saturday auction.

Prices ranged between $530,000 at Aberfoyle Park to $1.62m at West Beach. Both were three-bedroom houses and both sold mid-week, pre-auction.

Another three-bedroom home, in Royal Park, got a $510,000 pre-auction offer but it was not enough to secure a sale. The 2000-built home instead went to online auction with $562,000 secured by Ray White agent Rick Schultz who had 11 registered bidders for the 52A Cedar Ave home. It last sold at $410,000 in 2008.

–

Middle Park on top

Melbourne’s top sale was $3.65m in Middle Park. The four-bedroom house at 24 McGregor St had $3.5m to $3.8m price guidance. It was marketed as merging the original architectural beauty with a new era of quality by Hockingstuart’s David Wood, who secured the sale on auction eve.

“We had a strong buyer having interest above other parties,” Wood advised.

24 McGregor Street, Middle Park.

The home, with a full-floor master bedroom retreat, had previously sold at $2.93m in 2010.

The next best sales were along the sandbelt, with 3 Addison St, Elwood at $3.39m and $2.378m paid for 4 Tibbles St, Beaumaris. Just behind was the $2.27m sale of 1B Duncan St, Sandringham.

There were 858 auctions held across Melbourne last week, down from the 1087 originally scheduled. Of the results collected, 72 per cent were successful, with around half being sold prior, while 24 per cent were reported as withdrawn, according to CoreLogic.

–

Bargain buy

Melbourne’s Carnegie had the nation’s cheapest sale with a one-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in a 1960s block of 12. It fetched $250,000, having last sold in 1978 at $16,800, according to CoreLogic. The newly renovated unit had been listed by Jake Mabey at Barry Plant with a $230,000 to $250,000 price guide. There had been 2670 views of the listing at 6/45 Oakleigh Rd on the realestate.com.au website.

–

Moving north

Brisbane locals were outbid at a Corinda auction by a couple with young children who are making the move from Melbourne. The Queenslander-style home fetched $1.361m, some $36,000 more than the reserve, with seven registered bidders in attendance at the Ray White auction.

20 Richmond Street, Corinda

The home at 20 Richmond St featured on the Foxtel series, Love It or List It Australia, when hosts Neale Whitaker and Andrew Winter undertook a renovation in 2018 after the owners John and Georgia Bilad saw their family quickly expand to three children.

The vendors initially listed it but then they were unable to find the right home to move on to. “The sellers decided now was the best time to sell because they wanted to capitalise on the current strong market activity,” said selling agent Douglas May.

The home, within the sought-after St Aidan’s School catchment, last sold at $770,000 in 2014.

–

Auctions down

There were 1849 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities last week, down from the 2153 originally expected, given Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide being in lockdown. Of the 1509 results collected so far, 74 per cent were successful, down slightly on the previous week’s preliminary clearance rate of 76 per cent, which was revised to 73 per cent, CoreLogic calculated.

–

No sale

Giro Station, the tightly held NSW cattle farm, was notified on sale websites as the weekend’s top sale at $14m, but a check by Competing Bids with rural agents confirmed it was all an error. Only a lease deal had been done, not a sale.

Giro Station, Gloucester.

Located 170km from Newcastle in the Gloucester district, the 8014ha station had been listed for outright sale after the last farming tenant departed. The freehold last traded in 1995 when bought for $7m by the Dural-based Phil Carney, who made his money from airconditioning.

It had traded in 1968 for $356,256. Before that, Giro had been owned by the late Oscar winner, Hollywood star Anne Baxter and her second husband, the American grazier, Randolph Galt, having been bought in 1959 from the pioneering Field family for £150,753.

Galt, who had been the owner of a neighbouring Mid North Coast cattle station, met Baxter when she was in Sydney filming Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in 1958, where she appeared alongside Ernest Borgnine, John Mills and Angela Lansbury.

She described Giro as a house made of tin boxes, with frogs in the toilet bowls, sludge on the floors, and a generator providing power only two hours a day.

First she felt purified and triumphant, then caged, then restless, according to the New York Times review of Intermission, her 1976 autobiography.

The couple, who had homes in San Francisco, Honolulu and a New Mexico ranch, were divorced 10 years after their 1960 marriage. Galt was also involved in a failed Western Australian land development venture, Esperance Downs.

While currently unstocked, Giro was marketed by as an “ideal beef-breeding platform with a demonstrated carrying capacity of 1500 to 1700 breeding cows plus progeny.”

The whisper is interest has been shown in the property by publican John Lewis and his wife Deborah Lalor.