Bondi Beach bolthole sells for staggering price
Sydney’s Bondi Beach has achieved an extraordinary price for a one-bedroom apartment, which sold before its scheduled weekend auction.
In a staggering result, a Bondi Beach apartment has sold before its scheduled weekend auction for a national one-bedroom record of $11m.
The buyer was a family from Victoria who wanted a Sydney bolthole.
Facing north on Notts Avenue, overlooking Australia’s most famous beach, the apartment has 115sq m of space, plus 30sq m tandem car garaging.
The first floor triplex apartment was offered through Alexander Phillips and Vince Licata of PPD by the British-born Darrell Grundy from Apex Digital Billboards.
He bought the then two-bedroom apartment for $10m three years ago from former hedge fund operative Spencer Young.
“Microcement, white marble and natural stone create a dreamy ambience with an incredible 10m frontage to the captivating vista and a terrace that seemingly floats above the ocean,’’ the marketing paraphernalia said.
The Grundy renovations by U+I Building Studio, estimated to have cost about $802,000, had prompted an initially overly ambitious $14.5m price guide from Ric Serrao of Raine & Horne earlier this year.
It was Serrao who had secured a $24m record for apartments of all sizes when Andrew Roberts, the former managing director of Multiplex, bought a 265sq m apartment in late 2022 from Young. The penthouse came with 330sq m total space.
Since then Bondi Beach has seen $23m paid in June by Goodman Australia chief and former Wallaby Jason Little and his wife Bridget for the off-the-plan penthouse in the Hall & Campbell development.
It was a gutted shell in the Allen Linz and Eduard Litver project overlooking the beach, with an additional downstairs apartment totalling 220sq m.
Earlier this month the $22m was paid for the AYA penthouse in the Aqualine development on Hall Street.
The single-level 353sq m space with four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and two parking spaces sold to local downsizer buyers who will get ocean views, but not the sand.
The new $11m one bedroom record comes as PropTrack reveals data showing that 85 per cent of all established apartment listings over the past year, from studio to multi-bedroom, were priced below $1m.
Highlighting the creeping unaffordability, this year only 46 per cent of new apartment listings are being priced below $1m.
Buyers’ agency boss comes up trumps
At the weekend Luke Moroney, who heads the Search Party Property buyers agency, secured $9.2m for his Pacific, Bondi Beach apartment at its onsite auction through James Ledgerwood of McGrath.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment attracted two bidders, with two others who did not participate after the opening $8.2m bid.
The apartment had last sold in 2018 for $5.9m when offloaded by transport tycoon Arthur Tzaneros.
Top-priced property passed in
The weekend’s top offering, further along Sydney’s eastern suburbs coastline at Bronte, did not sell. There were no bids when Phillips and Anthony Puntigan at PPD offered the Macpherson Street home.
There had been a $16.25m buyers guide for the six-bedroom, five-bathroom house on its hillside 581sq m holding. The adjoining smaller home sold last month through Phillips for $13m.
Sydney’s equal highest sale on Saturday was Bryn Mawr at 25 Bangalla Street, Warrawee which sold under the hammer for $9.2m, well past its $8m reserve.
It was listed through Michael Demspey from Ray White Upper North Shore, and some 120 buyer groups went through the home in its three-week marketing campaign.
Four of the six registered bidders were active and the buyers were upsizing from Warrawee.
“The appeal of this home was its proximity to schools, huge size and beautiful view over Gillespie Fields,” Dempsey said.
The vendors, who are off to Barangaroo, bought the 1932 home in 1993 for $1.2m.
There was a $9.1m sale in Wollstonecraft: a five-bedroom, four-bathroom house at 7 Cable Street.
The $8.25m reserve was easily exceeded, with five of the 10 registered bidders competing for the keys. It sold to a family from Chatswood through McGrath agents Peter Chauncy and Ty McCartney-Brown.
Melbourne lull as eyes turn to footy
There was a lull in Melbourne auction activity due to the AFL Grand Final long weekend and school holidays.
The top seller among its 244 scheduled auctions was a three-bedroom Californian bungalow at 12 Fyffe Street, Thornbury that fetched $1,675,000 through Jellis Craig Northcote agent Nigel Harry.
PropTrack advised it last traded at $1.55m in 2022 through Harry.
PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty calculates Melbourne has 1203 auctions scheduled for this weekend, up 3 per cent year-on-year, then 1175-plus in the following week.
Online views take precedence
It seemed with the competing grand final teams coming from outside Victoria, idle Melbourne residents were preoccupied instead by local property listings.
The most viewed residential listing on realestate.com.au last week was on Melbourne’s outskirts, at Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, where the chief executive of the expansionary Whitefox estate agency, Marty Fox and his wife Charlotte are again seeking to sell their weekender.
It has quickly garnered 15,000-plus page views on realestate.com.au ahead of offers closing on October 15.
The transformed four-bedroom 1950s cottage on its 1548sq m Arthurs Seat Road holding has a $1.9m to $2.09m price guide, having been bought in 2021 for $1.55m through their investment vehicle, Fox Australia.
It had been unsuccessfully listed in late 2022 with $2.6m to $2.8m hopes, which were revised down to $2.2m to $2.42m by autumn 2023.
The priciest Red Hill sale this year has been $9.25m for the 4ha Meribel estate sold to the Krenus family by Christina Fox, the wife of Little Projects co-founder Michael Fox. It had a $12.5m asking price.
National clearance rate at 9-month low
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless calculated a 64 per cent national preliminary weekend auction clearance rate, down from 68 per cent in the week prior.
The combined capitals fell to the lowest level since last December.
The Adelaide preliminary clearance rate held steady at 74 per cent while the ACT jumped two percentage points to 65 per cent, the only capital to show a weekly improvement.
Sydney hosted the largest number, with 1196 homes going under the hammer, but its success rate fell to 66 per cent.
Melbourne’s 56 per cent preliminary auction clearance rate was the lowest since July 2022.
Brisbane had the weakest score at 55 per cent. A family home at 48 Derwent Avenue, Upper Mount Gravatt, attracted 16 registered bidders and sold for $1.42m.
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