Strong demand persists for Hamptons-style luxury
Despite the real estate doom and gloom headlines, boom-time prices will linger for some categories and locations.
Despite the real estate doom and gloom headlines, boom-time prices will linger for some categories and locations. The weekend results showed that luxury Hamptons-style auction offerings remain fiercely contested.
Sydney’s Northwood saw $9.65m paid for a Hamptons-inspired home on 1126sq m, with the lower north shore offering attracting five registered bidders.
The five-bedroom, three-bathroom home was built with 95-year-old reclaimed Jarrah floors in 2012, after the property was bought in 2000 for $1.035m.
There had been more than 8000 views on realestate.com.au.
Elsewhere, the $10m sale of a Noosaville Hamptons-style weekend offering came after it had attracted some 22,000 online views. Marketing agent Tom Offermann of Tom Offermann Real Estate said the five-bedroom, canal-front home had attracted some 400 emails and 400 phone calls.
Attendance at the auction of the home by design duo Trent and Kristy Giumelli was restricted to the five pre-registered bidders to avoid “pandemonium.”
The 920sq m holding on The Peninsula, Noosa Waters, had cost $2.4m in 2018, which was less than its $2.5m price in 2008.
The couple’s renovation, which includes beautifully crafted wainscoting and grass cloth wallpaper, was topped off by a Ralph Lauren chandelier.
“Noosa Waters is known nationally as one of Australia’s premier housing precincts because of its high calibre residences, award-winning designs, and deepwater frontages,” Offermann agent Nic Hunter said.
“Pride of ownership is evident throughout the estate,” he noted.
-
Clearance rate down
The national clearance rate now sits at its lowest this year, dragged down by Sydney’s 58 per cent, which CoreLogic noted was the lowest since the onset of the pandemic in April 2020.
Sydney saw 654 scheduled auctions, with 129 pulled.
The top two sales were pre-auction, led by the result for the Woollahra home of Perpetual executive David Laneand his wife Susan. There’s been no sale-price reveal for the Hugh Campbell-renovated Linden Ave home which came with a $13.5m guide, but it is understood that the three-level home fetched $14.5m.
The unrenovated house cost $3.7m in 2010.
There was also the pre-auction sale by racehorse breeder John Messara and his wife Kristine who secured more than $10m for their Pittwater weekender.
The deep waterfront property on Taylors Point had a $9.75m guide but sold three weeks early through James Baker of McGrath Pittwater.
The Hudson Pde, Avalon home was bought during lockdown in 2020 for $7.2m, but then rarely used.
-
Capital capers
Of the 746 results collected so far in Melbourne some 64 per cent have been successful, but that too is down on the prior week. Melbourne’s top advised sale was $2.98m at Glen Waverley.
The 1965 three-bedroom home on 735sq m last traded at $2m in 2017 and was marketed as a knockdown.
Brisbane scored a 62 per cent success rate from 185 listings.
Adelaide was strongest at 81 per cent, followed by Canberra on 75 per cent. Adelaide had 204 homes taken to auction, while Canberra was host to 85 auctions.
Adelaide’s top notified sale was $2,275,000 when 72 Kenilworth Rd, Parkside was sold through Georgie Todd at Harris Real Estate.
The four-bedroom 1910 sandstone villa comes fully renovated after its 2018 architectural addition, conceived by Designtech.
It had sold in 2017 at $873,000.
Brisbane’s top sale was $3,705,000 at Fortitude Valley through Heath Williams at Place Estate Agents.
The three-bedroom, 1900s heritage home at 191 Arthur St comes with city skyline views. Behind its traditional Queenslander veranda facade, the home has timber floors, lofty ceilings, VJ walls, plantation shutters, decorative breezeways and stained-glass windows.
Just 2km from the Brisbane CBD, the home last sold at $2.35m in 2020, after its renovation and extension by Lambert and Smith Architects.
Towards the Gold Coast, 10 registered bidders sought an acreage at Ashmore which sold for $3.65m. The downsizer vendors had paid $1.8m in 2014 for the five-bedroom, three-bathroom house on 4,700sq m at 22 Midgera St.
The vast home came with 538sq m internal space plus 280sq m undercover living space.
Canberra’s top sale was pre-auction when a four-bedroom at 14 Bragg St, Hackett sold for $1,902.000 through Homes by Holly family team, Jenny, Michael and Mark McReynolds. It has views to Mount Ainslie. It last sold at $926,400 in 2016, with a subsequent renovation.
-
Top agents
It’s a self-nominating list, but the nation’s top selling agents for 2021 have been ranked.
With $1.07bn in sales last year, Alexander Phillips has retained the No.1 spot in the Real Estate Business (REB) Top 100 Australian Agents award.
He’s held the mantle for seven years, selling from his eastern coastal Sydney base.
The top 100 agents average 38 years of experience and three support staff, with an average of 126 sales throughout 2021.
Phillips had 267 sales from 307 listings last year.
The Phillips Pantzer Donnelley (PPD) agency secured 732 sales in 2021, up from 586 in 2020, for a $2.2bn total.
Phillips, who secured 186 sales from 215 listings in the year before the pandemic, had forecast a strong start to the year with growth tapering off.
His advice was “to list in the first quarter for the best result”.
The PPD agency has sold 232 properties so far this year.
Phillips picked up a $6.65m Vaucluse investment property at weekend auction, the Coolong Rd semi pair to his neighbouring 2020 purchase, which cost $5.5m.
It’s just along from his own home, which cost $11.1m in 2018 and now is subject to a $7.95m redevelopment proposal.
Not all estate agents participate in the REB list.
It requires submitting all their sales details to the REB, which then uses various undisclosed metrics to generate the ranking.
Michael Clarke from Sydney’s northern beaches was ranked second by REB with 160 sales grossing $770m, followed by BresicWhitney agent Maclay Longhurst with 164 sales grossing $439m.
Outside of stellar Sydney, Marshall White agent Marcus Chiminello, who has often been the top-ranked Melbourne agent, ranked eighth on the national list this year, having the highest average sale price at $6.92m when securing $747m from 108 sales in 2021.
Chiminello has increasingly had a strategy of working with buyers’ agents to secure sales off market, the most recent listing being on Clendon Rd, Toorak. However, the 1930s home, redesigned by Michael Munckton, only sold after an online marketing campaign which saw it fetch around $22m when bought by Emma Leos, the wife of prefab building entrepreneur Nick Leos.
It was sold by veteran Bain & Company partner Chris Harrop, who’d bought it in 2013 for $11.5m from Mary Rowsthorn of the Rowsthorn transport family.