Luxe Listings go missing in overhyped TV drama

Mayo Hardware scion James Mayo has dashed hopes for an elusive sale on the Point Piper harbourfront.

152 Wolseley Road, Point Piper, NSW.

Mayo Hardware scion James Mayo has dashed the hopes of Luxe Listings Sydney agent Gavin Rubinstein securing an elusive sale on the Point Piper harbourfront. The third season of the overamped Amazon Prime docu-reality show, which aired over the weekend, opened with Rubinstein listing Mayo’s home with heady $40m to $45m hopes.

It was a surprise listing, since the former world champion yachtsman had only bought it 12 months earlier from student accommodation developer Michael Zammit through then LJ Hooker veteran Bill Malouf for $36m.

By episode two, Rubinstein had pulled the pricey Wolseley Rd home from its pending marketing campaign as Mayo decided to stay put. The show did, however, air the criticism from buyers’ agent Simon Cohen about the narrowness of the three-level home on Lady Martins Beach and its price hopes.

“I see wall, a little bit of blue water, then wall,” Cohen said as he inspected its ground floor. “The cat’s smoking something if he wants $40m,” Cohen added, before heading upstairs, to its wider views, via its stairs, rather than “the little lift”.

Devotees of the series will recall Rubinstein missed out on lawyer Sarah Cooke’s harbourfront Wingadal Place, Point Piper home listing in the series debut. And there was the stunt showing off the $100m Point Piper beachfront of Gary Wolman, the former Cinqplast Plastop packaging entrepreneur, when it was not actually on the market.

Game-changer

The importance of cracking the prestige harbourfronts of Point Piper for aspiring luxury estate agents was highlighted in recent recollections by industry veteran John McGrath, who heads the ASX-listed McGrath Ltd agency.

He’d been asked by Ready Media Group’s videographer Rob Langton about his pivotal “Bang & Olufsen” house sale for $11.25m in 1990.

The deal was done by Pennant Properties’ Brian Johnson.

It sold to the Taechaubolfamily through McGrath, William Porteous and Bart Doff.

“I think it took me five years further afield,” said McGrath, who until then was doing well from his single Paddington office.

McGrath now has 110 offices. It told shareholders in its August results announcement that its chief executive was “laser-focused” on growing the network to 250 over the next four years. He told Langton he was soon to open a third office in Tasmania.

McGrath also revealed he’d been prompted to do his 2015 IPO by its then chief operating officer Geoff Lucas.

“I was not that keen to list,” McGrath said, noting that to retain, incentivise and attract good staff he’d sold about 16 per cent of his business.

“There was a big push from them to list the company. The COO at the time was very keen … he was in their ear saying it was a great way to increase the value of their investment,” McGrath noted. “I allowed myself to be convinced into it,” he said.

The company, which raised $130m at $2.10 a share, is now trading at around 40c, while Lucas heads the ASX-listed competition, The Agency, which is trading at 3.4c.

The property at 15 Ranley Terrace, Paddington, Qld

Paddington perfection

A classic Queenslander-style home in Brisbane’s Paddington topped the nation’s under the hammer weekend results. Two of the three bidders competed in the $3.7m sale with the four-bedroom home, which sold to a local buyer. The deceased estate was sold by family members based in Ashfield, Sydney. The 805sq m hilltop Ranley Terrace corner holding was sold by Ray White agent Max Hadgelias.

“Rather than dealing with eight to 10 bidders like we were a year ago, we are dealing with two to three bidders,” Hadgelias acknowledged.

Tax grab defeated

The early reports on the ditching of Queensland’s expanded land tax regime will need to be rewritten following the fresh revelation that Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk did not notify Treasurer Cameron Dick ahead of her decision.

Dick, who unveiled the policy last December and slipped it into the mid-year budget, confirmed he found out “through the announcement made by the Premier after she had spoken to (interstate) leaders”.

Palaszczuk had certainly flagged she’d be checking on the cost burden of its cross-border data collection at the premiers’ dinner ahead of Friday’s national cabinet. It’s where she heard direct from NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, who had signalled his refusal to help Queensland find and then tax property investors residing in NSW.

Perrottet’s refusal to share the crucial data required to implement the controversial tax was front page news last Monday in The Daily Telegraph, with editor Ben English also publishing an editorial since the tax was mostly going to hit NSW investors.

The tax proposed using the land value of an investor’s national property portfolio to determine the rate of tax they would pay on their Queensland holdings. It was estimated to hit 10,000 investors.

Competing Bids had written last December that the measure would prompt investors to sell out of Queensland and invest elsewhere, noting it would be the reverse of the death duty abolition by Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s government that saw investment pour into Queensland after 1977, triggering other states and the Commonwealth to follow suit. It was 2GB broadcaster Ray Hadley, relaying into Brisbane on 4BC where he’s the top rating morning talk host, who’ll be credited for undermining the new tax.

Hadley highlighted the issue of double taxation on the same asset – almost daily – after it was raised by Katrina Grace Kelly in a column published in The Australian in late August. That hit a nerve with more than 600 reader comments.

More significantly, Hadley raised the matter off air with NSW Finance Minister Damien Tudehope, questioning its constitutionality and its practical implementation hurdles.

Hadley, who was upfront about being hit by the tax, piqued the interest of Courier Mail columnist Peter Gleeson, who ascertained Queenslanders who owned outside the state would also be caught in the expanded tax net, despite Dick’s promise of no new taxes for Queenslanders.

“We’ve had a victory,” Hadley told his audience on Friday. “Cameron Dick will be removing the egg from his face.”

The property in Alphington

Speers on target

Auction volumes impacted by long weekends put the spotlight on the 823 homes taken to auction in Melbourne, where 64 per cent sold, according to CoreLogic, at just above the 62 per cent national tally. Melbourne’s sales included the 1930s Alphington house of ABC Insiders host David Taggart-Speers (as per the title) and his wife Elizabeth Taggart-Speers that sold for $2.31m. It fetched $110,000 above its $2m to $2.2m Jellis Craig guidance after three bidders sought the keys. It had cost $1,836,275 in 2019.