Mornington Peninsula pile fetches $11.25m
Expatriate fintech start-up entrepreneur Michael Giles has spent $11.25m on a four-hectare luxury estate at Merricks on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula.
Expatriate fintech start-up entrepreneur Michael Giles has spent $11.25m on a four-hectare luxury estate at Merricks on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula. It had been listed with $14m hopes.
The mortgage-free purchase came in the wake of Giles’s recent business windfall – selling the Embed Financial Technologies clearing business last June to the now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange group FTX headed by Sam Bankman-Fried.
Set on the Frankston-Flinders Road, some 90 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD, the five bedroom, five bathroom home was a new build by Swell Building Group founder BrettMiall and his wife Sally.
Its main cabin-style residence features exposed timber, concreted chimneys and steeply sloped roofs along with enormous floor-to-ceiling windows.
There’s a spa, gymnasium, 400-bottle wine cellar, theatre, golf simulator, yoga studio and sauna. It sits in gardens by Nathan Burkett with tennis court and infinity pool.
Giles, a 39-year-old who has been living in the United States at Vancouver, Washington, but hails from Hoppers Crossing, had previously sold Third Party Technologies, which was acquired in 2019 by Square, the mobile payments company founded by Jack Dorsey now known as Block.
Giles’ first job after finishing school at Salesian College, Sunbury, was with Computershare.
The Merricks property was the peninsula’s most viewed home listing on realestate.com.au last year with some 90,000 views, just ahead of the 80,000 for business high-flyer Radek Sali’s Flinders estate that fetched $23,382,990.
Sali’s eight-hectare hobby farm-turned-vineyard, first listed in February last year with $30m price hopes, sold to Alan Svoboda, billionaire owner of Czech coal mine and energy company Sev.en Global Investments.
Fixer-upper
Victoria’s top weekend auction sale was acreage at nearby Shoreham with $4,375,000 paid for a 12-hectare holding.
Coming with a dated clinker-brick, single-level, four bedroom home, Chartarelle was marketed as “nestled among the vigneron elite of the Mornington Peninsula hinterland”.
The 276 Tucks Rd holding, just along from the Manton’s Creek Vineyard, had been listed with $3.6m to $3.9m price guidance through RT Edgar agent Madeline Kennedy.
The six paddocks, that come with workshop, stockyard, hay shed, and two spring-fed dams along Manton Creek, was offered for the first time in half a century by the Prosser family.
Shoreham’s priciest listing is Windmill, for which Joshua Mantello is seeking $16.5m to $18m. Listed last October, the six-hectare property with views of Phillip Island was bought for $6m in 2017 when it was vacant land, being offered after 170 years of Tuck family occupation. Mantello has had Deague family financing registered on its title.
Melbourne’s weekend auction clearance rate came in at 71 per cent, according to CoreLogic.
Melbourne was the busiest capital city auction market last week with some 618 listings, notwithstanding some made the weekend into a four-day break ahead of Tuesday’s Anzac Day public holiday. This time last year the success rate was 63 per cent.
Clearance rates
CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless noted Melbourne has returned a higher clearance rate than Sydney over four of the past five weeks.
Sydney’s preliminary success rate again sat in the 70s, at 70.8 per cent, from the 455 results collected so far. It was running in the high 50s this time last year. The top sale was a Gilbert St, Dover Heights, home at $8.17m which last traded 45 years ago.
Sydney’s next top sale was when $6,025,000 was paid in Manly for a contemporary home 200m from Queenscliff beach. It last sold in April 2021 at $5.2m.
The 32 Pacific St home sits on a compact 329 sqm. The rare freestanding house was built seven years ago with a granite and brick rendered facade. It has double-glazed windows. There’s an outdoor beach shower amid its tropical gardens.
No deal
There was no sale when Peter Matthews, the boss of Realtair, the proptech online auction company,put his lower north shore Sydney home to auction. The four bedroom, three bathroom Cremorne house was passed in on a $4.6m vendor bid, after two bids including an online offer.
The 1920s Claude Ave home last sold in 2009 at $1.8m with a modern rear extension coming soon after.
Matthews and wife Bec are off to do a Manly renovation project.
Matthews had been scheduled to do an onsite auction at the nearby 12 Tobruk Ave, Cremorne, listing which sold before auction after 388 inquiries and 147 inspections. There had been five contracts issued, with its sale price undisclosed, but its price guidance had been raised during the marketing campaign from $5m to $5.3m.
The REA group is Realtair’s biggest shareholder in the business which allows agents to streamline sales through technology from property appraisal to settlement.
Adelaide on top
Adelaide was the most successful of the capitals last week with a preliminary clearance rate of 85 per cent, snaring the top spot from Melbourne. Adelaide held 69 auctions, while Canberra had 64 and Brisbane held 95. Canberra’s rate came in at 62 per cent while Brisbane was on 53 per cent. A riverfront Ryan St, West End, home was Brisbane’s top seller.
Bidding opened at $2.8m and got to $3.3m some 10 minutes into the proceedings. With the auction then taking a break for one-on-one negotiations, the auctioneer returned with a higher bid of $3.5m, which is where it ended up selling through Place agent Alexandar Denmeade. The five bedroom, three bathroom house on 835 sqm looks across to the University of Queensland’s manicured grounds. It last sold at $400,000 in 1991.
Noosa running hot
There is no shortage of buyers for Noosa property with the quintessential beach house at 16 Shearwater Street, Peregian Beach, selling at $5.3m.
There were four bidders seeking the keys to the four bedroom, four bathroom home with walking track direct to the beach from its back door. It was sold by Tracy Russell from Tom Offermann Real Estate
“It was almost a clone of another beachfront auction we held the week before at 37 McAnally Dve, Sunshine Beach, which sold for $5.5m,” Tom Offermann said.
“Median prices throughout Noosa have softened over the past year, but buyers are seeing this as an opportunity to purchase with a little less competition and with a little more choice.”
The office has sold 12 of its last 14 auction offerings, including a Little Cove townhouse at 2/29 Allambi Rise. It sold for in excess of $7m ahead of its scheduled April 28 auction through Offermann agents Jill Goode and Chris Miller.
Holiday hiatus
Anne Flaherty, the PropTrack economist, noted auction sales volumes remained subdued last week, given the school holidays, with just 1655 auctions across the nation.
This week it will bounce back with more than 2000 auctions.
“Despite the increase, the number of scheduled auctions remains below the levels seen pre-Easter and lower than the levels seen 12 months ago,” Flaherty said.
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