Sylvania Waters flip yields 20% price growth under the RBA Gov's near watch

Sylvania Waters flip yields 20% price growth under the RBA Gov's near watch
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

There was 20% annual growth achieved on a recent Sylvania Waters flip.

The house sold at auction for $1,441,000 after an update. 

This was the house in April last year sold at $1.2 million.

The place had been spruced up during the unintended quick flip.

Bidding on 9 Roper Crescent opened at $1.1 million.

It was signalled as on the market at $1,436 million.

There were four bidders, but just two for the last $200,000 or so.

David Greig at McGrath Sylvania Waters told Property Observer that there were six registered parties on the four bedroom, two bathroom house.

There was $1.2 million plus price guidance on the part two storey house with rear oasis-like swimming pool with Travertine and palm surrounds.

Sylvania Waters is the suburb where the governor of the Reserve Bank Glenn Stevens resides.

The governor, too, owns a non-waterfront property; it's a two-storey house on 657 square metres which was bought in 1993 for $312,500.

Given price growth and renovations over the past 16 years, he could also recoup over $1 million.

"My house is not a fibro house, but it is a piece of spec rubbish built in the 1970s, and in many respects it shows that," Stevens told a 2007 House of Representatives hearing.

Back in the 1950s, Gwawley Bay oyster farmers sold out to the developer Jim Goyen, who constructed the suburb on land reclaimed from the Georges River.

After installing an eight-kilometre concrete retaining wall, more than 2 million cubic metres of shell-strewn sand was dredged during the 1 million pound infrastructure scheme.

The local council approved the development, with privately owned waterways, after sending the shire engineer to Florida Keys in the US to see how it could be done.

Property Observer noted there are diminishing numbers of original buyers remaining in the 50 year old houses, but some turned up to the recent auction.

The suburb's record was set at $4.6 million in 2004. The six bedroom, six bathroom house in the governor's street is on an unusually large 1,290 square-metre block on the open waters. 

There was one residence aiming for a waterfront record with $4.8 million expectations. The two-storey James Cook Island residence featured as Lois Lane's home in the 2006 movie Superman Returns. But it sold at $3.55 million in 2013, after four years on the market, unable to withstand the kriptonite effect of the global financial crisis.

It is among the last seven sales above $3 million that have all gone to buyers of Chinese descent since 2010.

Loss-taking was the norm on the waterfront after the global financial crisis. Four 2009 sales reflected losses between 6% and 25% on their purchase price. 

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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