Top-end luxury property sales firing up

The top end of Sydney’s mansion market has seen a dramatic rush of activity in defiance of the usual winter cool-down.

This Edward Street, Woollahra, house is a gem

The top end of Sydney’s mansion market has seen a dramatic rush of activity in defiance of the usual winter cool-down, with big names including model Jennifer Hawkins selling and radio star Jackie O buying homes.

Beneath the hubbub of celebrity mansion trades that are a staple of Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs and north shore, experts say the shock caused by the coronavirus crisis has prompted buyers to believe they can get into some of the city’s most tightly held nooks.

While the supply of grand homes is relatively constrained, that has not stopped some big-name buyers diving in.

Christie’s International Real Estate managing director Ken Jacobs is fielding up to 80 calls a day. “It would be the busiest winter I can ever remember,” he says.

Just this week he brokered, for Hawkins and husband Jake Wall, the sale of their Sydney waterfront home, the Newport property Casa Paloma, for about $20m.

That followed one of the year’s largest off-market transactions, when Shay Lewis-Thorp, daughter of late property tycoon Bernard Lewis, sold her Bellevue Hill mansion for $30m to neighbour Louise Christie.

Much of the activity is being driven by the fact that wealthy buyers are still in Sydney, rather than holidaying offshore, as COVID-19 restrictions have eased in NSW.

Jacobs says there are more buyers than available stock, and that includes interest from expats.

He says a new class of buyer is looking at moving to Australia permanently in the face of global uncertainty.

Jacobs says some savvy buyers see how the virus has been capped locally and the strong relative performance of the local economy.

He says that with multiple buyers interested in homes, there could be price growth. Even with a downturn he predicts a more polarised market, with the lower end falling while upper end properties sell at a premium.

Cohen Handler chief executive Simon Cohen says a year ago buyers were struggling to access the top end of the mansion market. But the coronavirus crisis has changed their behaviour.

“They think there’s less buyers because they think that people have been hit,” the buyer’s agent says. But if anything that has seen more buyers on the hunt at a time when up to 80 per cent of top end activity is off market.

There was an initial discount due to the virus but that is passing. “Some of the properties we bought at 10-15 per cent less than what we would have bought them at last year,” he said.

But new stock is selling at the same prices or at higher levels, as both local buyers and expats move in. Bellevue Hill is “very hot” and he secured properties for $3.5m and $8m in the past two weeks.

Buyers are still coming as now remains a good time to get into the market. “Once confidence is back it breeds more competition,” Cohen says.

Ben Collier, property partner at The Agency, has been turning over constant $10m-plus sales. He brokered the sale of Angus Aitken and his wife Sarah’s four-bedroom residence overlooking Cooper Park to radio host Jackie O in Woollahra for $11m.

But he also recently brokered the Surry Hills record with an Albion Street home selling for about $12m.

He says volumes are down on last year but that people have made a mental and emotional adjustment to COVID-19 and a number of sales were starting to come together.

Collier says there had been an expectation there would be an increase in supply in the prestige market, “but we have not seen it”.

“The tight supply levels have placed a floor under the market and created greater stability,” he says.

“Certain prestige properties that are coming onto the market are drawing specific buyers into the market, buyers who are interested in the uniqueness and quality of the home. The strong appeal of these particular homes is engaging key buyers irrespective of what is happening globally, and/or locally.”

There has been some expatriate activity but not at the extent expected.

“Interestingly, much of this expatriate buyer activity is coming from US-based expats. The current buyer pool is greater from the US market than from Hong Kong and Dubai, for example. It is difficult to know whether this is a coincidence or a greater trend,” Collier says.