The Sell: Retired Ray no longer needs Bella Vista townhouse
Ray Hadley and his wife Sophie have listed their Bella Vista townhouse as they will be mostly dividing their initial retirement between the NSW Central Coast and Queensland’s Gold Coast.
NSW
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The recently retired Radio 2GB veterans Ray Hadley and his wife Sophie have listed their redundant contemporary Bella Vista townhouse. Their listing decision was made late last year after they decided they’d be mostly dividing their initial retirement between the NSW Central Coast and Queensland’s Gold Coast.
Their northwest Sydney townhouse – a four-bedroom, two-bathroom abode with garaging for two cars – comes with $2.7m expectations through Jane Booty and Viviane Mylott from Stone Real Estate.
The two-storey, 2022-built townhouse, with roofed alfresco courtyard, is on a 282sq m holding, within the Norwest Essentia Estate developed by Mulpha as a gated community.
It boasts a world class wellness centre with heated pool, spa and well-equipped gymnasium, plus barbecue and full kitchen.
PropTrack puts the Bella Vista four-bedroom median after 19 sales over the past year at $2.45m, slightly below its recent peak of $2.55m.
PropTrack calculates four-bedroom Bella Vista houses typically rent for $1000 a week, reflecting a gross rental yield of 2.5 per cent. But the Stone marketing advises the listing has $1450 per week rental potential if bought by an investor.
The couple plan to secure a Sydney penthouse, near Castle Hill Country Club, the world-class championship golf course where they both play.
It was in mid 2023 that the couple secured what started out as their coastal weekender when they spent about $2.75m on a five-bedroom home on the Bouddi Peninsula, 95km north of Sydney.
It marked a return to the Central Coast for Hadley, who had a beachfront at Toowoon Bay until 2016.
He sold his longtime Dural home in June 2021, having been living on acreage since the mid-1990s.
The couple, who had been colleagues for almost two decades, married in March 2021.
The father of four, who worked a punishing seven days a week early in his career, told his listeners that the grandchildren’s arrivals were “life-changing experiences”.
“They basically are my life,” he said while regularly giving his radio audience insights into the seven grandchildren, all aged six years and younger, so they became akin to family for the listeners too.
He gave the Sunday Telegraph a startling revelation last month on the recent leukaemia diagnosis of his granddaughter, Lola, 3.
Hadley, who has not ruled out selective broadcasting gigs, has had a Gold Coast bolthole since 2016.
TV MAGIC COULD WORK WONDERS
Foxtel’s Selling Houses Australia is launching its 17th season on March 5 led by property veteran Andrew Winter, with a call-out for long-suffering vendors willing to appear on its 18th season.
The “magic touch” property guru returns with interior designer Wendy Moore and landscaper Dennis Scott, who once again bring their property market know-how and flair to boost the sale prospects of long-unsold homes.
They’re up against tough and unpredictable market conditions in the 12-episode season where the team tackle an unloved six-bedroom home in Sydney’s western suburbs as well as a heritage home at Camden.
There will be a rollercoaster of emotions with the ordinary families facing financial and emotional difficulties, the team advises.
“The home truths are still brutal,” said Winter, who recently sold an $875,000 Paradise Point, Gold Coast, investment property.
Selling Houses Australia airs Wednesday, March 5, at 8.30pm on Foxtel and will be available to stream on BINGE.
Meanwhile, homes currently stagnating on the market with no buyer in sight are being sought for season 18, the MyCastingNet advises.
“Try to be as specific as possible with your dilemma whether it be location, decor, or an urgent need for a sale,” it suggests.
The Sells suggests Selling Houses could seek celebrity contenders with ambitious pricing, starting with the unsold Bradman House at Bowral.
The childhood home of Don Bradman originally listed at $3m last May, remains listed despite its vendor, cricket enthusiast Andrew Leeming, lowering the guidance to $2.1m. Its front garden would be a perfect setting for the Selling Houses pantomime to dress up in cricket whites.
The Tzaneros house at Vaucluse, listed in 2023 when the transportation family sought $55m, remains unsold despite its fresh $45m guide. The renovation team could catch the five-person lift that accesses all levels of the Olola Ave home, which cost $32m in 2021.
Or the Selling Houses team could do some whale watching while working out how best sell the Wategos Beach, Byron Bay home of car dealer Steve Nasteski.
The Marine Pde beachfront is now into its third year on the market.
CRAFTSMAN-BUILT, MULTI-STOREY CONVERSION PULLED FROM AUCTION
The stunning Old Hat Factory residential warehouse conversion in Paddington was pulled on auction eve from its scheduled weekend auction.
Alexander Galanis, of The Agency, listed the much-featured home with $13m to $14m price guidance, but seemingly was not confident of securing a sale.
The Paddington/Woollahra market has been highly problematic so far this year with just five of the 19 prior auctions finding buyers. Some 12 of them were withdrawn from auction.
The multistorey trophy home has been listed by Naomi Tosic, founder of the boutique co-working business The Office Space.
Her late husband, master craftsman Boris Tosic, from Elan Construct, a residential and commercial interiors business, undertook the project.
Renowned artist Margaret Olley, who died in 2011 aged 88, was a longtime owner after its $67,000 purchase in 1979, with her house described as “a cornucopia of delight”.
Tosic’s four-year project was a mission to build a zamak (the Croatian word for “castle”).
Tosic, who arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1989 as a merchant seaman, sought input from Domenic Alvaro, of architects Woods Bagot, and long-time collaborator Don Cameron, an art director, stylist and Italian furniture importer.
There are five bedrooms and four bathrooms across the four floors of the 393sq m holding.
The living space has 13 windows.
There is a glass-bottomed heated pool with swim jet on the rooftop terrace.
There is also a storeroom, gym, lift, guestroom and screening room.
Walnut timber is predominant through the home, even the lift with a glass rear wall and the internal shaft hosting a series of Del Kathryn Barton collages.
Tosic bought the 1892 Church St brick warehouse for $2.5m in 2011 from food and lifestyle photographer Petrina Tinslay, whose commercial studio was on the ground floor.
NO SILVER LINING FOR THESE CLOUDS
Two newly-completed penthouses built atop Skye Tamarama have now been sold, four years after they were launched on the market.
Called Cirrus and Stratus, they each came with initial $20m plus hopes. The sales bring closure to the long overdue development project, but not its ominous cost blowout.
The body corporate, which included previously highly regarded property gurus, thought they could undertake the repair, renewal and extension of the building at a $10m cost estimate, funded by adding the two luxury penthouses.
The saga began in 2011 when fire safety and concrete cancer issues arose in the 78-apartment complex, completed by Walter Rivkin in 1965. It was officially known as Glenview Court, but quickly nicknamed the Soviet Hospital, and then more affectionately the Tamarama Toaster.
The adjusted hope was for the penthouse proceeds to finance a $26m refurbishment – but costs ballooned, with Australia’s biggest-ever drawdown strata loan at $60m plus, through Lannock Strata Finance, with interest repayments hitting as high as 11.55 per cent.
The bigger 270sqm internal, 130sqm external penthouse fetched $14m when bought by Caledonia Investments boss Will Vicars who installed $6500-a-week tenants.
The smaller penthouse, posted this week as a $7000-a-week rental on Instagram through Sotheby’s agent Anna Hudson, fetched $13m. While the strata paperwork has yet to be registered, there’s whispers the latest buyer is Vicars.
MONICA TU SECURES RETAIL DIAMOND
Property-loving dentist David Penn and his wife Linda have sold their twee shop top Transvaal Ave, Double Bay property.
They’ve secured $6.65m for the retail property with a residential abode above.
The 195 sqm holding had been listed by Sotheby’s agent Michael Pallier in conjunction with Monika Tu at Black Diamondz Concierge.
The buyer has emerged as Club Diamondz Double Bay Pty Ltd, co-founded late last year by Tu and her estate agent husband, Jed Khattar, who are seemingly to open an estate agency office.
David Penn and Linda, an heiress of the Lowes Manhattan fortune, had paid $2.8m in 2015.
It had been home to the now-online ́only Palmer & Penn, the luxury homewares and furniture outfit run by the couple’s son Josh and his husband Ben Palmer.
The Penns are well known in property circles as the owner of Villa Veneto on the Point Piper waterfront, which they bought for $53m in 2010.
The family has a penchant for property both locally and overseas.
Their most recent known purchase was just outside Monaco at Cap d’Ail, in the south of France.
They reportedly paid €15 million ($24m) for the property, which was even described as “a castle”.
STAR RABBITOH SCORES BIG SALE
South Sydney captain Cameron Murray secured $2.2 million at last weekend’s auction of his Clovelly investment apartment.
The Clovelly Rd abode went$250,000 above reserve after just 11 days on the market through Sydney Sotheby’s agent Mark McPherson.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment cost $1.25 million in 2019.
On nearby Fern St, celebrity Jessica Rowe has $1.4 million hopes for her investment.
COASTING INTO THE WEEKEND
The Avoca Beach, Central Coast weekender of the late media executive Brian Walsh has been sold to property developer Brett Cornish for $9.6 million.
The Elizabeth Bay-based Walsh died in March 2023, just before he had the chance to move into the four-bedroom, four-marble-bathroom lakeside home.
The Ficus Ave home set a suburb record, which had stood at $8.5 million since 2022.
SPORTING A NEW OWNER
The contemporary Coogee Beach house of former Channel 9 sportscaster Cameron Williams has been snapped up ahead of its March 22 auction for an undisclosed price.
The four-bedroom property, set in an elevated location 500m from the beach, had $5.7 million guidance through James Ball and Mark McPherson at Sydney Sotheby’s.
It had been listed in late 2022 with $6 million expectations.
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