Push on to clear prestige inventory before summer break
The nation’s top real estate agents will be working to seal deals on prestige listings in capital cities ahead of the usual long summer break.
Estate agents will be seeking to secure pre-Christmas sales of their lingering prestige listings ahead of the long summer break for the capital city property markets.
As the hammer comes down on 2024 sales, deals are still occurring, highlighted by a $4.4m prestige sale last week in Hobart’s Sandy Bay.
Greystanes, a modernised 1910 Arts & Crafts-designed home, was sold through Elders Tasmania agent Abi Freeman three weeks after being House of the Week in The Hobart Mercury.
The five-bedroom home, designed in the style of architect Charles Voysey, was built in 1910 on its 2544sq m holding for William Webster of the prominent produce company which was founded in 1831.
The house with 689sq m internal space has a magnificent cedar panelled reception hall.
It had last sold at $1.7m in 2014.
Freeman had another $4.4m sale earlier this year when a 1930s simple Spanish Mission-style home sold in Sandy Bay. It had been the highest notified Hobart house sale of the year until last week.
Splitting it four ways
The $130m Elaine estate at Double Bay might rank as the priciest sale of the year, but it is set to be redeveloped into four building lots by its mystery buyer.
It was exchanged in October by billionaire Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and investment banker wife Kim Jackson.
The New South Head Rd building blocks have been since offered at between $30m and $65m, with the cumulative target of $200m-plus.
It was former owner John B. Fairfax pocketing $71m for the property in 2017 and ending 125 years of family ownership, who secured the four-house subdivision approval.
Rockleigh, the Point Piper trophy home, looks set to rank as the nation’s highest priced house sale of 2024 at its yet to settle but rumoured $85m.
Dr Philippa Harvey-Sutton sold her inherited Wolseley Road harbourfront to Frank Qiang Geng, the Rose Bay-based recycled shopping bags tycoon, who is reputedly set to rebuild on the 1284sq m site.
Meanwhile Geng had his redundant Rose Bay harbourfront listed with initial $75m price hopes, but this month it was reduced to $55m.
Where the Melbourne money was spent
Karum, the $40m Toorak home, was Melbourne’s top known sale during 2024 amid a deepening pile of unsold stock.
It was sold in February through Kay & Burton agents Ross Savas by the founder of yoghurt brand five:am, David Prior and his shoe designer wife, Sallie. It had a price guide of $46m to $50m in spring last year.
The 1920s St Georges Road property had been bought for $23.3m from restaurateur Chris Lucas in 2014, after Prior sold his organic yoghurt business for $80m.
The five-bedroom home with a David Hicks-update that sits on a 3000sq m block with pool and spa, tennis court and gym was designed by architect AJ Ainslie for Holeproof textiles director Sidney Gullett, whose estate sold it in the 1950s to McKay family of the Sunshine Harvester fame.
A 1931 Australian Home Beautiful magazine article dubbed the property “one of Toorak’s most dignified homes”, and noted that its “restrained and well-proportioned exterior conveys the comforting assurance that its architecture will stand the passing of the decades”.
The buyers are neurosurgeon Richard Bittar and his wife, clinical psychologist Renee.
There’s no price disclosure yet on the Hains estate, also in Toorak, that sold for about $39m after a year-long campaign concluded in March. The unconfirmed Albany Road buyers are accounting giant Findex’s Spiro Paule and wife Conny.
It is understood Kay & Burton’s Andrew Sahhar introduced the couple to the property which had last been sold in 1968 for $108,000.
The 10-bedroom Georgian mansion of late Portland House Group fund manager and horse breeder David Hains had hit the market with $45m to $50m guidance in 2023.
Both sales were at around half the price of the $80m Melbourne record, set in 2022 on St Georges Road, Toorak by crypto king Ed Craven.
Melbourne’s Myer family is still seeking to offload the Cranala estate on Clendon Road, Toorak, which has been in the family’s hands since 1921. It was marketed as set to fetch more than $100m.
Perth’s big spender
Mosman Park had Perth’s top sale at $25m, having been initially listed at $33m in November last year.
The 2011-built, four bedroom, five bathroom Wellington Street home with 863sq m living area was sold in May through William Porteous of William Porteous Properties International by hedge fund manager Clayton Freind and his wife, Annelise.
The couple had paid $20.4m for the 1768sq m holding in 2007 and then rebuilt. It won the Housing Industry Association’s best custom-built home in WA in 2012.
The buyer was Acquato Property Holdings which is directed by accountant Geoff Lotter who holds its only share, but not beneficially.
Brisbane’s big offmarket deal
Brisbane’s residential sale price record was broken this year with the offmarket $23m sale of the heritage property at 32 Sutherland Avenue, Ascot. It sold to an as yet undisclosed local family, beating the $20.5m record set in April last year for a New Farm riverfront.
The Ascot house was sold by Brett Walker of BWC Group, who bought the 1930s Queenslander on 3035sq m for $10m in 2021 from the now Point Piper-based Ray White chairman Brian White and his wife, Rosemary who had raised their three sons at the home from the mid-1970s.
Sale price sets Unley record
An Unley Park manor fetched $12.5m in May when Helen Rule from the Imatech Group sold her five-bedroom Adelaide residence through Penny Riggs of Alexander Real Estate to the Foord family.
The Victoria Avenue home bettered the suburb’s $7,650,000 Whistler Avenue record that had been set in February.
A nearby stately five-bedroom 1900 sandstone villa on 3865sq m remains listed through Jamie Brown at Booth Real Estate though its price guidance has been reduced from $12m to $13m to $11m to $12m hopes.
Adelaide’s record remains a $13.5m off-market sale on Pennington Terrace, North Adelaide in 2021.
Tops in the territories
The ACT’s top known sale this year was $7m at Red Hill in August.
The 6 Moresby Street house on 4,003sq m sold in 1999 for $1,755,000. Red Hill also had an $8m sale in late 2023 for a five-bedroom, four-bathroom house at 4 Wickham Crescent.
The price of the Northern Territory’s most expensive home sale was a three-way tie between $2m sales at Parap, Brinkin and Larrakeyah.
2024 also saw the settlement of the 2023 exchange of the palatial residence at 19 Kirkland Cres, Larrakeyah at $5.325m through Seth Chin of Chin Property Group, which ranked as the NT’s fifth most expensive home sale ever, behind an $8.5m Fannie Bay home in 2022.
A much better Christmas
Although PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty calculates the number of scheduled auctions drops to 1271 this week, it sits some 79 per cent higher than the same pre-Christmas week last year.
Just 12 auctions are scheduled in the week commencing December 23.
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