Caledonia Investments’ Will Vicars pays $12.5m cash for another Bondi buy
Billionaire fund manager Will Vicars has added to his eastern suburbs property portfolio with a $12.5m cash buy on the Ben Buckler headland in North Bondi.
Billionaire Caledonia Investments fund manager Will Vicars has emerged as a $12.5m cash buyer on the Ben Buckler headland in North Bondi. His investment acquisition is a non-waterfront 1920s triplex apartment block.
The recent Brighton Boulevard settlement paperwork shows it was transferred by Kaltis Properties, a shelf company fronted by tax lawyers, that had paid $11,299,000 in 2020.
Its full-floor, three-bedroom penthouse, with beach views, comes with a design “capturing the flair of Latin art deco” by SJB Interiors and Former Glory Inc.
The purchase takes Vicars’ known purchases across the Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte precinct to around $110m.
His buys date back to his one-time Bondi Beach price record in 2012 when he bought a penthouse in the Bondi Pacific for $10.05m off the plan, followed by its neighbour in 2013 for $10.9m, and a third penthouse for $11m in 2016.
There was also an $18.75m house in Bronte, bought through tax lawyers in 2022, an $8.25m Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach apartment, plus one of the Glenview Court, Tamarama penthouses for around $14m.
Vicars, whose wealth is put at $1.24bn on The List – The Richest 250 resides in Point Piper and has a weekender at Lovett Bay on Pittwater and a farm in the Southern Highlands.
Perth performs
The nation’s top advised weekend sale was $6.65m for a parkside four-bedroom, four-bathroom home at Perth’s City Beach. The contemporary coastal style, tri-level home which was built in 2016 has a dress circle view of the Indian Ocean.
Ray White agents Emma Milner and Vivien Yap had five registered bidders, with three participating.
“The buyer flew down from Broome,” Milner says.
Its 679sq m Chipping Road block cost $1.7m in 2011.
CoreLogic calculated a 53 per cent weekend auction success rate from Perth’s 22 auctions.
The national preliminary auction clearance rate came in at 65 per cent across the capitals, slightly below the 67 per cent average through spring to-date.
Adelaide topped the capitals with 70 per cent sold.
Host with the most
Melbourne hosted the most auctions with 1293 listings, returning a 66 per cent success rate, in line with its spring season average.
The top under-the-hammer result was in Middle Park when $4.23m was paid for a double-fronted brick home on Harold Street. There were five bidders for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house which was declared on the market at $4m. There had been $3.5m to $3.8m price guidance.
Middle Park also saw a pre-auction sale of the former Honeybone’s hat factory conversion at 145 Neville Street at an undisclosed price, having been listed with $5.1m to $5.5m guidance.
Melbourne’s priciest listing, a weatherboard house at 22 Church Street, Toorak, was passed in on a $6.25m vendor bid, which buyers agent Mal James noted contributed to the weakening 59 per cent prestige Stonnington district clearance rate. It had come with $6.5m to $7.15m guidance from Marshall White.
A slice of heaven
The long-time Carmelite Monastery on the residential Golden Mile in Canberra sold at an undisclosed price, shortly after being passed in at $6.2m at its weekend auction.
It had been listed by Andrew Chamberlain and Mario Sanfrancesco at Blackshaw Real Estate, initially with $8m price guidance which was revised to $6m. There were just two bidders.
It sold to a buyer who registered some 35 minutes into the onsite auction.
The 28 Mugga Way, Red Hill property served as a monastery for the Carmelite nuns for five decades until the final four sisters, Monica, Bernadette, Francesca and Paula, left for Melbourne in August.
It garnered about 3000 page views on realestate.com.au during its marketing. The tightly held residential strip is a favourite for diplomats, including across the road where the Kuwait flag is flown.
CoreLogic calculated the Canberra clearance rate slumping to 42 per cent after the collection of 62 results from its 94 auctions.
“It was the lowest since the early phase of the pandemic in April 2020,” CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless advised.
Top listings fail
Sydney’s 1073 auctions, its third highest volume this year, returned 68 per cent clearance, which was consistent with the spring season average.
But 39 of Sydney’s 49 priciest offerings failed to find buyers, including two Mosman relistings.
Adam Thompson, the PwC partner, pulled his Wolseley Road listing that had been brought to market in April with $12.5m to $13.5m guidance. And publican Matthew Fallon and his partner Tamara Martin await buyers, having initially listed their Prince Albert Street Federation mansion with $18.5m to $19.5m hopes in May.
Mosman did see a pre-auction undisclosed sale of Apollo, a Raglan Street Federation house.
Brisbane down
Brisbane had its lowest volume in five weeks with 175 auctions. Its 53 per cent preliminary clearance rate sat just below the 57 per cent spring-to-date average.
The top Brisbane sale was $3m for the five-bedroom, three-bathroom house at 70 Evelyn Street, Grange.
Brooke Copping at Ray White Wilston saw four of her 12 registered buyers compete for the keys of the new build.
“All of our bidders were young families. Both the buyer and the underbidder were from Sydney,” she says.
The buyers had grown up in Brisbane and are moving back.
Penthouse settles
Annabelle Shamir, the wife of Adam Blumenthal, the former chairman of boutique stockbroker EverBlu Capital, has secured the settlement of her Rose Bay penthouse investment.
Having hit the market in September last year with $18m expectations, the 626sq m space fetched $14.7m when bought by Andrew Jones and Joanne Burgoyne-Jones.
Shamir hadbought it off the plan for $11.5m in 2021 with Bureau SRH then commissioned to fit out the four-bedroom-plus-study residence.
Last week saw the sale of Shamir’s luxury Bellevue Hill abode for around $42m, reportedly to Monaco-based expats Olivia Skuza and Heath Wells, who co-founded e-commerce platform NuORDER.
NAB heads the four registered mortgages on the Victoria Road title. There were also two caveats arising from other loans.
Last month Blumenathal successfully fought off court proceedings by Australian Motorcycle & Marine Finance.
The rumoured Bellevue Hill settlement is scheduled for within a fortnight.
Shamir purchased the property from lifestyle blogger Stephanie Conley-Buhre and her husband, venture capitalist Oskar Buhre for $30m.
Blumenthal’s outgoings jumped in April after an investigation by ASIC into market rigging with ASX-listed Creso shares.
The Federal Court in April ordered Blumenthal to pay a penalty of $850,000 and be disqualified from managing corporations for five years. Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart also ordered he pay $100,000 towards ASIC’s costs.
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