Slowdown hits prestige sales in wake of Phoenix Acres, Vaucluse sale last December
The $65.2 million sale of Phoenix Acres at Vaucluse by Singaporean businessman CK Ow to nearby resident Dr Jerry Schwartz and his wife Debbie topped Sydney’s prestige sales during the past financial year.
The price reflected 10 per cent annual growth for the 3700sqm estate that ranks as Australia’s third priciest all time sale. The six-bedroom, six-bathroom home sold 22 years prior for $7,001,000 through the same selling agent Craig Pontey.
Schwartz is yet to sell his redundant $32 million Vaucluse waterfront estate Loch Maree.
The financial year’s next priciest sale was around $43 million-plus through agent Brad Pillinger when the now Bermuda-based retailing billionaire Brett Blundy sold in Rose Bay to Dover Heights couple Sylvia and Lawrence Myers, who took vendor finance. It was one of the few sales that have occurred in the six months following the Phoenix Acres sale.
The $39 million Deauville, Point Piper, sale sat in third place when car importer Neville Crichton secured the beachfront home subject to its construction completion. Crichton’s redundant home on Wolseley Rd was offloaded at $36 million to a near-neighbour, Andrew Potter.
The Vaucluse-based, Australian-Chinese billionaire Dr Chau Chak Wing’s family snapped up the Darling Point trophy home of freight and transport boss Terry Tzaneros for $31.8 million through agent Alison Coopes.
The sixth dearest sale for the year was $30,263,400 in Darling Point when John Roth and wife Jillian Segal bought out their neighbours last July.
The seventh dearest was back in Rose Bay with the off-market $30 million Bayview Hill Rd sale of the home of the late Sonja Lyneham to Samira Jeihooni, wife of property developer Arash Tavakoli.
The eighth place $29 million sale saw The Boatshed, on Wunulla Rd, Point Piper, sold after three years on the market by the O’Neil family, and after six decades ownership, to the Point Piper-based former car dealer Paul Scharrer and his wife Pam.
The highest north shore sale remains a mystery after the former Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein and his wife Jane sold their Mosman mansion reportedly for a record $23 million.
Sydney’s top sale remains $71 million for Elaine at Double Bay when Pyrmont tech billionaire Scott Farquhar bought the beachfront from publisher John B Fairfax early last year through Ken Jacobs.
Sydney now has a slowing trophy home market in which local buyers have dominated the last top eight purchases.
Despite the hoopla of attracting interest from Beijing, New York, even India, all the known deals were struck with local buyers from next door to just 7km away.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.