Thredbo still hot for real estate; national auction success rate slides
Record prices are still being paid on the southern Australian ski fields, although the high-altitude villages could do with some snow falls as the ski season gets under way.
Record prices are still being paid on the southern Australian ski fields, although the high-altitude villages could do with some snow falls as the ski season gets under way.
One of the five Sequoia chalet apartments at Thredbo sold last month for $1.65m through Michelle Stynes and Alex Cherry at Forbes Stynes Real Estate. Its auction outcome ranked as the priciest one-bedroom Thredbo sale. The apartment, with 81sq m internal space plus balcony with jacuzzi, was sold by the Warren family.
“Thredbo is still getting record prices; however, the length on market has been increasing, with the frenzy gone out of the market,” Stynes says. Stock levels are still low, “so prices are holding up nicely at this point”.
Stynes’ latest listing is the $4m four-bedroom chalet Riley’s Run in the Woodridge estate. The National Parks and Wildlife lease records shows the longtime tenant is Meldell Pty Ltd, associated with the Sweeney legal family.
Snow business
At Mount Buller, the highest penthouse on the mountain has been listed at $3.7m through John Castran, the sales doyen of four decades in the Victorian snowfields.
Set on the verge of Bourke St, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment is within the Whitehorse Village Road project undertaken by the Grollo family.
A nearby vacant building site was recently sold pre-auction for $1,375,000 by the Grollos, with frontage onto the Bourke Street run. The 424sq m site sold through Castran to the neighbouring Hotel Pension Grimus owner Lotte Grimus.
Her late husband Hans Grimus came to Australia in 1961 working as a lift employee and then becoming the lift company general manager, before opening their guesthouse in 1973.
There’s a $3.6m asking price for the nearby luxury penthouse designed by Henry Francis Design.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom Breathtaker Rd offering, with three living rooms, was listed in the 2018 International Dezeen Awards.
Castran calculates many of the high-end sales have been priced between $18,000 to $22,000 per square metre.
Entry level is $9500 “if you can get it.”
“There is a real shortage of listings, and we haven’t seen any collapse in values,” he said.
Cat’s cradle
Tourism entrepreneur Antony Catalano paid almost $7m for a Timbuktu, Mt Buller penthouse off the plan in 2021 to add to his Raes hospitality portfolio headlined by Raes on Wategos.
Catalano, executive chairman of Australian Community Media, will take delivery of the 350sq m penthouse within weeks, according to Castran.
Designed by Cera Stribley, the five-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment comes with all-important ski in, ski out access. The purchase from developer Greg Taylor’s Headland Properties is in the sell-out four being constructed above the prior complex, built about 12 years ago.
Ski lift sculpture
The only auction on the slopes on the weekend was a fundraiser for local charities at Mt Hotham, Victoria’s highest ski resort. Some 30 chairs from the decommissioned Playground ski lift were sold off as large sculptural keepsakes. The top $5000 bid was from the SilverStar Mountain Resort Canada president, Jane Cann, from the pioneering Schumann family who’d constructed the chairlift in the late 1960s.
Auctions slide
Maybe it was the distractions of the long weekend, which typically prompt a decline, or perhaps the latest rate rise had an impact, but the 72 per cent national auction success result was the lowest in six weeks.
“Auction markets lost some steam over the weekend,” said Tim Lawless from CoreLogic, which reported the King’s birthday weekend auctions were down 43 per cent on the prior week.
“Whether the softer result is a reflection of the June rate hike dampening housing market sentiment is uncertain.
“With the volume of auctions set to almost double next week, we will have a better measure of the fit between buyers and sellers outside of the disruption of a long weekend,” Lawless said.
Templestowe on top
Melbourne volumes more than halved last week, from 736 last week to 315, with its 73 per cent preliminary success rate its lowest in seven weeks.
Melbourne saw a $4,030,000 top sale at Templestowe. The guide from George Pangalos and Oliver Hu at Jellis Craig had been $3m to $3.3m for the five-bedroom, four-bathroom house, San Willow, that sits on a 4833sq m Obriens Lane holding. The grounds came with pool, spa, a floodlit mod grass tennis court and a guest cabana with wet bar. Last sold at $3.23m in 2015 to the Zhu family, it had been listed last June without success with the same price guidance.
Valuable Vaucluse
The nation’s priciest weekend auction listing was at Vaucluse, with auctioneer Damien Cooley placing a $35m vendor bid. The Vaucluse Rd offering was through Alexander George and Peter Leipnik at Bradfield BadgerFox who’d given $30m price guidance.
The bidding opened at $30m and stopped at $33.5m from the 11 registered attendees.
It was listed by the Balagiannis hotelier family who paid $3.21m in 1994 and then rebuilt.
Sydney was the busiest market last week, with 468 homes auctioned with a 75.9 success rate. The withdrawal rate rose from 10 per cent to 16 per cent.
Sydney’s had the nation’s highest weekend sale when $5.4m was paid at East Lindfield. The Wellington Rd home fetched $80,000 above reserve after bidding from five of the seven registered bidders. Jessica Cao at Ray White Upper North Shore had issued 20 contracts. The neighbours were the underbidders, with it sold to buyers from a neighbouring suburb. The Mai family had paid $1.36m in 1998.
One and Unley
At 85 per cent Adelaide recorded its highest preliminary clearance rate since April, with Brisbane on 58 per cent and Canberra the weakest on 52 per cent.
Adelaide’s top sale was $4.66m in Unley. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom 1887 sandstone villa was sold through Stephanie and John Williams of Williams Real Estate. The sandstone Miller St home on a 1205sq m holding was being offered for the first time in four decades by the Vercoe family. It was one of four similar neighbouring homes constructed by builders who went bust on the final home, according to the McDougall & Vines study.
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