Sydney's stellar weekend of prestige property sales

Sydney's stellar weekend of prestige property sales
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

Sydney had a stellar weekend with strong prestige property sales.

An off the plan penthouse offering at the luxury development Opera Residences on Circular Quay sold for $27 million, bettering a $26 million adjacent sale announced just a few days earlier.

The sale of the last 280sqm penthouse (below) occurred on Saturday at the official launch of the 109 apartments to be built on Macquarie Street by Chinese developer Macrolink and its local joint venture partner, Landream. 

A local family from the Sydney's lower north shore secured the 19th level with views of the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and the Botanical Gardens. 

There was also confirmation of a $60 million plus sale of Altona, a Point Piper harbourfront home (lead image pictured above).

It was sold by the low key Wang family to the Huang family from Hunters Hill. 

The Wang family had bought the prized harbourfront home for $52 million in 2013, so with few only minor renovations have made a handy profit.

Its sale did not require Foreign Investment Review Board approval by the resident Australians.

The iconic Victorian Italianate home sits on a 2400 sq m holding.

Sydney dominated the weekend auction scene too.

A $5.9 million pre-auction sale was secured at Mosman.

The 6 Lavoni Street offering (above) has sold at $5.55 million in September 2015.

In Sydney, 1,064 auctions were held this week, down from 1,089 over the previous week. The preliminary clearance rate of 81.2 percent is slightly down from 81.4 percent last week, however still higher than the corresponding week last year, when a clearance rate of 56 percent was recorded across 1,116 auctions.

The North Sydney and Hornsby region recorded the strongest clearance rate of 90 percent, while also recording the highest volume of auctions of all the regions with 149 offerings.

Next weekend the Sydney market will host its peak spring Super Saturday of auctions with more than 950 homes due to go under the hammer, according to Domain.

There were 2,950 auctions held across the combined capital cities, with only a small increase over the 2,897 reported capital city auctions last week.

The number of auctions are tracking at the highest level since March.

"There has been no indication that clearance rates are starting to ease as we approach summer," said CoreLogic's Kevin Brogan.

"However, when compared to last year, auction volumes continue to track lower with vendors still seemingly reluctant to place their properties on the market despite such strong selling conditions.

"There were 3,166 auctions reported over the corresponding week last year, with a clearance rate of 59.5 percent, which is a substantially lower rate of clearance when compared to the higher rate that has remained consistent since July."

This week’s preliminary clearance rate remains healthy at 75.6 percent, decreasing only slightly over last week’s final clearance rate of 75.8 percent.

In Melbourne, a preliminary auction clearance rate of 79 percent was recorded across 1,299 auctions this week.

Last week, Melbourne’s final clearance rate was recorded at 76 percent across 1,329 auctions, while this time last year, 1,510 properties were taken to auction across Melbourne and a clearance rate of 67 percent was recorded.

Melbourne's top sale was a contemporary home at St Kilda.

The five bedroom 1880s home with modern extension at 10 Charlotte Place fetched $4.4 million.

The Essendon midfielder Dyson Heppell sold his Moonee Ponds house after its weekend auction.

It was his renovation project spent during his year banned from football.

A $2.65 million sale was secured for the 1910 house which the 24-year-old transformed while serving his AFL doping ban,

The property had been bought in September 2015 for $1.74 million with Heppell naming it Albertus after his grandfather..

The selling agent Rebecca Towns of Brad Teal had been quoting $2.5 million to $2.65 million for the four-bedroom home.

The preliminary clearance rate in Brisbane this week was 47 percent, down from 53 percent over the previous week. Auction volumes were higher this week with 260 auctions held, up from 196 last week.

Brisbane had the nation's cheapest sale over the week at Beenleigh when a three bedroom townhouse fetched $230,000

It was a mortgagee sale.

It last sold at $112,000 in 2002.

A total of 135 Adelaide homes were auctioned this week and the preliminary auction clearance rate of 68 percent is just higher than the 67 percent from the previous week across 133 auctions.

It was higher than the equivalent week last year, when 64 percent of auctions were successful.

In Perth, 72 auctions took place this week, with 35 results reported so far. Perth’s preliminary clearance rate of 48.6 percent across these 35 results is higher than both last week’s result (37.5 percent) and the clearance rate from one year ago (31.3 percent).

Canberra’s preliminary auction clearance rate of 71 per cent this week is lower than last week, when the final auction clearance rate was 76 percent and higher than the 61 percent recorded last year. 

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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