Socialite Di Maloney dives into Tamarama for $29 million

Socialite Di Maloney owns one of Point Piper’s prized trophy homes with gun-barrel harbour views on arguably the country’s most expensive street.

So her recent purchase of an oceanfront block of five apartments in Tamarama for $29.2 million will no doubt pique the interest of Double Bay agents hungry for top-end listings.

The rundown block of five is set to be redeveloped into luxury apartments for the exclusive use of Di Maloney.

It’s even more the case given talk of Maloney’s plans to redevelop the Tamarama building in two or three luxury apartments to be kept exclusive for her and her children.

Socialite Di Maloney is developing a family home in Tamarama.

Maloney did well to secure the oceanfront reserve block considering she was up against nine parties haggling within weeks of it hitting the market with a $20 million guide, through Highland Property’s William Manning and Ballard’s Clint Ballard.

Settlement this week confirms its place as a building record for the east’s oceanfront suburbs, topping Manning’s $29 million sale in 2018 of James Packer’s Bondi Beach home complex.

From Altona to Darling Point digs

Matt Handbury and Clare Strang’s new home is a three-bedroom spread in Darling Point.

It’s not the Point Piper mansion Altona, but former magazine mogul Matt Handbury has finally returned to Sydney’s high-end property titles in suitably comfortable fashion, buying $9 million digs in Darling Point with his wife, Clare Strang.

Matt Handbury and Clare Strang at the Marie Claire party in 2005.

The nephew of Rupert Murdoch has a history with some of our best homes, beyond the Point Piper residence he sold 20 years ago for a then record of $28 million.

He rented the historic Caerleon mansion in Bellevue Hill and Bronte’s Bronte House, and was last named on local titles in 2017 when he sold his Southern Highlands retreat Wattle Ridge for $8.25 million (only to see Mike Cannon-Brookes snap it up four years later for $12 million).

Handbury and Strang’s newly purchased two-storey spread was billed in the advertising by 1st City’s Julian Hasemer as having interiors by the late designer Garth Barnett. It’s the top half of a duplex developed in 2003 by finance broker Adam Tilley before his ill-fated investment on the Point Piper waterfront with convicted murderer Ron Medich.

Steve Bellotti makes market comeback

Former ANZ head of global markets Steve Bellotti is set to return his Mosman trophy home to the market after announcing plans to return to the US later this year.

The Mosman residence of Steve Bellotti was designed by architect Shaun Lockyer and built from concrete, stone, timber and steel.

This is the landmark designer digs that is cantilevered over Taylors Bay and was rebuilt to a design by architect Shaun Lockyer in 2016. It was listed two years ago for more than $35 million, just as the pandemic was rattling economic markets.

Steve Bellotti is returning his Mosman home to the market.Credit: Michele Mossop

It would have sold, too, if not for Bellotti. As Atlas’s Michael Coombs says, it was pulled from negotiations given Bellotti’s surprise return to Australia.

Crypto investor Bellotti, who chairs Token Capital Management, has relisted it with Coombs, who is expected to launch it to property sites in the coming week for about $36 million.

Wang’s $130 million spree

A little-known property investor from China, “Tony” Tong Wang, has emerged as the record-setting $22.2 million buyer of Neerim House in Castle Cove from Chinese superstar Tong Liya and film director Chen Sicheng.

The 2377 square metre property, Neerim House, is among the largest privately held estates on the lower north shore.

The house sale by McGrath’s Craig Ireson marks an official end on title records of the union of two of China’s most high-profile celebrities, even if the couple are believed to have never stayed in the property since purchasing it in 2018 for $15.05 million.

Tong and Chen have been making headlines in China since Tong announced their divorce in May last year to her 40 million Weibo followers. Within hours of the post, their divorce was the subject of Beijing censors, and more recently Tong has been linked romantically with high-ranking Beijing official Shen Haixiong.

Tong Liya announced her divorce to her 40 million Weibo followers a year ago.Credit: Ng Han Guan

While Wang remains a mystery to the handful of agents who have dealt with him in recent years, corporate records show he is the director and sole owner of 18 companies established in the past 18 months.

A handful of those companies have made significant property purchases over the past year totalling more than $130 million, including houses in Mosman and Castlecrag, industrial warehouses, Neerim House and the $70 million purchase of the landmark Haymarket building that was once long home to the Mandarin Club.