Former RBA Governor Glenn Stevens completes Shire upgrade
The dour former RBA Governor Glenn Stevens and wife Susan have splashed out $3.6 million on their next home, upgrading to a waterfront but staying in the Shire.
They have secured a new home on the Georges River, complete with its own boatshed at Sylvania.
His trade up comes as his RBA successor, Dr Phillip Lowe has open the door for even cheaper home loans, with possibly a third rate cut of the year as soon as next Tuesday's October meeting which could bring the official cash rate down to another historic low at 0.75 per cent.
Last month his former RBA colleague Guy Debelle indicated "there is evidence that the decline in housing prices has reached its end."
With views towards Captain Cook Bridge, the new full brick, three level duplex home designed by architect Justin Quinlan comes with four bedrooms, two with ensuites, and a master with a dressing room.
The open plan living areas offer views across Botany Bay. There's a gym, media room and home office for the former central banker who now sits on the board of Macquarie Group.
There are two entertaining terraces, one with a built in barbecue kitchen opens to the level lawn where there's a swimming pool.
The marketing of the home ceased last December two months after the duplex strata plan was registered. The neighbouring property was sold in July at an undisclosed price.
Stevens will have likely secured an ANZ home loan interest rate with a three at the front on his new home.
The Stevens family recently offloaded their nearby longtime Sylvania Waters home after having a guide of $1.7 million to $1.8 million.
Stevens, who was at the central bank between 1980 and 2016, joins the early spring sellers who took an undisclosed pre-auction offers.
They had paid $312,500 for the non-waterfront property in 1992.
In 2007, he told a House of Representatives hearing, "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”.
When he bought the official cash rate was 5.75 per cent.
Stevens was no stranger to rate movements during his decade at the top.
Rates started in his termsat six percent, and within two years rose to 7.25 percent, before being cut during the GFC to 3 percent in 2009.
They were at 1.5 percent on his 2016 departure.
Stevens indicated in 2015, two years before the boom turned into a two year downturn, that some of Sydney house prices were "crazy."
He suggested last year that "a child born today will not be able to afford a house today without family assistance.”