Record smashed as house sells for $4.18m in ... West Ryde?

A house in West Ryde has sold for $4.18 million, setting a new suburb record and topping the previous high by more than $300,000.

The seven-bedroom house at 23 Anthony Road had been scheduled for auction on Saturday with a price guide of $4.1 million but sold early on Friday to a family from nearby Epping.

A family home at 23 Anthony Road, West Ryde sold prior to auction for $4.18 million.

The $4.18 million price for the 973-square-metre block set a new suburb and postcode record, surpassing the previous 2017 record of $3,865,000 paid for a six-bedroom house on a 1189-square-metre block on Farnell Street.

Selling agent Liz Wiggins of Stone Real Estate Epping said it was a big result for the suburb, where she said the average house - such as a regular California bungalow - would sell for between $2 million and $2.5 million.

“I think everyone was like, ‘What, $4 million in West Ryde? What’s the world coming to?’” she said, noting buyers with that sort of budget had typically looked to nearby suburbs such as Putney.

“This was unusual, though, because it was in a conservation zone, had good land and a big house in a good state that you wouldn’t knock down.”

The main section of the house has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen with a scullery, multiple living areas and a home office. Two further bedrooms are in self-contained guest quarters and the home also has a heated pool, wine cellar and three-car garage.

Wiggins said there was strong interest in the property, despite the recent shift in buyer numbers across the market. About 60 groups inspected the home but competition came down to two buyers, given the price point, and the decision was made to sell before the scheduled auction.

“At that level we had the two buyers, they had reached a ceiling of where they were both able to proceed, we went back and checked with all the other buyers to see where they were at, but these two were at the same level,” she said.

The house has seven bedrooms and multiple living areas.

The result was well above the suburb’s median house value of $2.14 million, on CoreLogic figures, which has climbed 18.3 per cent over the past year. It was also well above the $492,000 that records show the owners – who built the home and plan to downsize – paid for the block in 2000.

Wiggins expected $4 million-plus sales would become more common in the suburb as more locals opted to downsize, bringing more substantial homes to the market.

It comes just weeks after a five-bedroom house on a sprawling 4116-square-metre block in nearby Epping was sold for more than $7 million.

The house at 24-26 Gloucester Road sold via an expression-of-interest campaign for about $7.5 million last month, sources say, after about a week on the market.

Selling agent Catherine Murphy of The Agency North declined to disclose the price but confirmed the sale.

“There was a huge level of enquiry, I was really surprised,” she said. “I really thought there just weren’t going to be that many people with deep pockets wanting to invest in Epping.”

Blocks of that size are few and far between in the suburb, where the average lot size is about 750 to 800 square metres.

Records show the property last sold for $235,000 in 1983 and Murphy said the vendors had built their dream home on the site the following year.

She noted the buyers had not confirmed whether they would keep the property as a home or explore potential development opportunities for the sizeable parcel of land. Any development would be subject to council approval.

The result tops the $5.75 million paid for a six-bedroom house in the suburb in late 2019, believed to be the previous price record for a residential site.

It was also more than triple Epping’s $2.3 million median house value, which was up 14.7 per cent over the 12 months to April.

Elsewhere, a five-bedroom house in Abbotsbury in Sydney’s south-west set a new suburb record at auction on Saturday, selling for $3,315,000.

The home at 7 Withers Place last sold for $310,000 in 1999, records show, with the price increasing more than tenfold in 22 years.