Knockdown on cards for $4m-plus ocean hideaway on Mornington Peninsula
A three-bedroom limestone home on the Mornington Peninsula sold for $4.225m but seems likely to be a knockdown given the preference these days for layers of polished concrete.
Just the two prestige recreational auction successes over the weekend with a $4,225,000 sale at Sorrento on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula. The three-bedroom limestone home that overlooks the ocean will most likely be a knockdown given the preference these days for layers of polished concrete.
Its 1980s design had been inspired by pioneering tourism entrepreneur George Coppin’s original Sorrento back beach rotunda. The property has direct access to the surf beach, which is a seven-minute walk through coastal wilderness.
Last traded in 1971 at $3000, it was an executors offering through Liz Jensen at Kay & Burton, who had listed it back in May. “We’ve had such a long cold winter which meant we didn’t get a good volume of people through,” Jensen said.
“So it was rescheduled for the ultimate test of the market – an auction at the end of January, like the old days.”
On the Gold Coast, a luxury canalfront at Paradise Waters was passed in at $4.3m by Ray White Prestige agent Anthony Cheeseman. It sold for $4.4m shortly after auction.
Riviera, a two-level home with a 22-metre water frontage, comes with a Versace-inspired design. It too has been a lengthy listing, having come to market in June. It last traded in early 2021 at $3.1m.
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A slow start
The capital city residential sales market typically returns after the Australia Day break, with just the 430 auctions scheduled across the nation last week, according to PropTrack.
The volume was down 35 per cent on the same time last year, PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty noted.
Auction offerings jump to 1087 this week, then 1500 nationally in the first week of February, but that’s down around 45 per cent on the same time last year.
The early bird February market is down by 57 per cent in Brisbane, 43 per cent in Melbourne, 27 per cent in Sydney and 26 per cent in Canberra. The slowest start is in Adelaide where early February listings are down 78 per cent.
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Stamp of approval
Bondi was the beneficiary of the NSW first-home buyer no-stamp-duty scheme introduction when 11 registered bidders, 10 of whom were first-timers, turned up to buy a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment.
The 8/323 Bondi Road offering was auctioned by Paula Simoes from The Agency after 7000 page views on realestate.com.au. The auction was brought forward by two weeks given the demand. It was sold to an FHB expatriate living in London who is coming home. “There’s an exciting new energy in the market place,” Simoes told Competing Bids.
Saturday’s buyer will pay $2528 land tax based on its $709,078 unimproved land value, with annual increases then capped at 4 per cent. The stamp duty revenue would have been $61,750.
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Comings and goings
Staff movements, rather than sales, are the key industry occurrence over the long summer break. The biggest unfolded at ASX-listed The Agency, which announced Sally O’Connell as general manager of sales for Victoria and Tasmania. Her arrival comes after the December departure of Peter Kakos, who had led its expansion into Melbourne in 2017.
Malvern East-based O’Connell has for the past three years been at Macquarie Group’s real estate division, which has 2000 residential agency banking clients. She’d previously worked as an agent at Marshall White and Jellis Craig. Her most famous listing was the St Kilda Federation residence, Kipling Mews, of comedian Colin Lane, half of comedy duo Lano and Woodley, which fetched $2.56m in 2017. Former longtime REA Group director of sales Steven Carroll takes on the role as The Agency’s Queensland general manager replacing David Price, who has left the industry.
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Back in town
There’s whispers ASX-listed McGrath is set to sign up a star recruit from rival Ray White to join its Double Bay office, now under the new leadership of Craig Pontey and Michael Finger, who joined McGrath from Ray White late last year.
The vastly experienced McGrath duo have apparently pinpointed James Ledgerwood as their first big recruit. It would signal a return to McGrath for Ledgerwood, who worked with the agency on the Gold Coast between 2011 and 2017. The son of legendary agent Paul Ledgerwood has been in the industry for nearly two decades.
Working alongside veteran Gold Coast agent John Natoli, Ledgerwood secured sales for clients including Melbourne developer and steel family scion Rodney Smorgon on the Isle of Capri and also the sale of the Mermaid Beach home of LM Investment Management founder Peter Drake for the ANZ. Since relocating back to Sydney, Ledgerwood has worked on eastern suburbs listings with sales topped off late last year at $8.4m for the Kew Penthouse at 334 Bondi Road, Bondi, a record for the suburb that is the next best thing to bustling Bondi Beach.
Ray White Double Bay’s headcount, according to LinkedIn, is down 9 per cent annually, and that’s before next week’s defection by Ledgerwood and his sales associate, Ben Fraser. McGrath recently lost Glenn Curran, its top seller on the upper north shore, to The Agency.
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In good faith
A Friday afternoon online auction ended with the sale for $168,000 of a deconsecrated 1880s church in the small Victorian town of Cudgewa. The property features views of the Upper Murray countryside.
There were six bidders through Justin Costello and Kerry Miller at Costello Rural for the 2016sq m holding. It was initially listed in October with $150,000 guidance, and then via the Openn Negotiation website with a 40-day countdown.
There were more than 7100 viewson realestate.com.au. It was sold by the Uniting Church in 2012 for $56,000.
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