Who is Aqualand's Jin Lin, the second biggest shareholder in the McGrath estate agency

Their stake in McGrath cost around $10.7 million.

The Laneways

33-37 Mentmore Avenue, Rosebery NSW 2018

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Aqualand is also a vested corporate citizen, sponsoring sporting and cultural initiatives such as The Australian Ballet, Sydney Film Festival, Sculpture by the Sea (Bondi), and the Western Sydney Wanderers.

Aqualand is backed by capital from its parent company, Shenglong Group which has $25 billion in investments and development in China, Europe, the US and Australia.

He is the only son of Chinese property mogul Yi Lin, head of Shanghai-based property group, Shenglong.

The two are reportedly close, speaking three to four times a day.

Lin senior was a sub-contractor but started his own development company in 1999 in their hometown of Fuzhou in the southern province of Fujian in China.

The company has developed 30 million square metres of property.

The younger Lin, a finance graduate from Macquarie University in Sydney, went to his father's construction sites every day as a child.

The Lin family migrated to Australia 16 years ago.

Their hillside Vaucluse mansion, inspired by the grandest of villas in Palermo, Sicily, dates back to the 1920s when built for the Grace retailing family (below).

Villa Igiea was the long-time home of the late TNT transport tycoon Sir Peter Abeles and then his widow, Lady (Kitty) Abeles.

Its first update came during the McWilliam family’s ownership, then its contemporary refurbishment by Paris designer India Mahdavi which featured in the April 2013 Vogue.

Dr Burt had paid $17.37 million in 2005, then adding an adjoining 800 sqm property with house in 2009 costing $4.9 million, which was anticipated as a tennis court block.

Source: State Library of NSW, Sam Hood Collection.

For a time James Packer was interested in buying Villa Igiea but instead bought La Mer in 2009.

Set above Hermit Bay, Villa Igiea was built on its 2200 sqm block in the Riviera Liberty style to a design by Neville Hampson, the architect who also designed Boomerang at Elizabeth Bay.

It became one of Sydney's leading short term luxury rentals, occupied by Texan billionaire Jim Clark and his wife, Kristy Hinze-Clark as their Sydney to Hobart race-winning bolthole.

Villa Igiea, which had enough space to host Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt's wife, and their six children, could command up to $70,000 a week.

Blue at Lavender Bay

61 Lavender Street, Milsons Point NSW 2061

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