Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen downsizes to $5 million Bronte semi: Title Tattle
John O'Sullivan, the head of investment banking at Credit Suisse, and his estranged wife, the Australian newspaper columnist Janet Albrechtsen, have spent $5,125,000 on a four-bedroom Bronte semi (pictured above). It was bought several days after its recent auction through the Shabat development group, which had Brian Meyerson undertake the design. With panoramic ocean and beach views, it comes with rear pool. It had been initially listed in May 2010, but without success.
The new neighbouring semi remains listed at $5 million plus after its June auction through Elliott Placks and Michael Krimotat at Ray White Double Bay, in conjunction with Barry and Mark Goldman at Raine & Horne Double Bay. The former power couple have lived at Bronte – slightly lower on the hill closer to the retail strip – since paying $207,500 in 1985. They’ve watched some 1,200 of their 1,500 neighbours come and go over the ensuing 26 years. No sign yet of any listing of the matrimonial house, and O'Sullivan's abode, which Title Tattle presumes won't be listed, and certainly not before the graffiti removalists are sighted repainting the garage (pictured at left).
Peter Everett, who was the ebullient host of Ready Steady Cook, the Channel Ten afternoon cooking show, has listed his East Redfern residence (pictured above). The Kepos Street terrace comes with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. More than $1.6 million is tipped, given the house underwent a substantial renovation in 2008.
It has been listed for forthcoming auction through Pauline Goodyer and Brighid Fitzsimons at GoodyerDonnelley. The stately Victorian terrace retains its original façade, but the interior of the house has been completely rebuilt by a master builder. Everett has been responsible for its interior décor (pictured below).
The house is set on a deep dual access block with rear off-street parking. The three-level residence is perfect for entertaining and family living with a double living room and open-plan kitchen that flows into a large dining zone with french doors opening to a courtyard garden.
Offers close today on the East Circular Quay penthouse being sold by the founder and owner of BB Retail Capital Brett Blundy and his wife, Vanessa. Its McGrath agent Hamish Robertson has been seeking more than $13 million. The Blundys have lived in the two-level Bennelong apartment since buying it in July 2007 for $12 million from businessman Warren Johns and his wife, Joan, who now live at Pyrmont in a Sydney Wharf apartment.
The interiors of the Blundy apartment were refurbished by designers Hare + Klein in 2008. It comes with more than 600 square metres of entertainment areas with views of Circular Quay, the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Botanic Gardens. The Blundys are off to Vaucluse, where they have spent about $25 million consolidating two adjacent properties, one with a frontage to Kutti beach. It’s a Ken Woolley-designed house built for the media entrepreneur Michael Willesee in the early 1990s.
The adjoining non-harbourfront property was bought for $7.95 million from the entrepreneur Howard Woolcott. It was first listed in 2008 at $12 million. The five-bedroom Ergo Achitecture-designed house was built after the block was bought for $4 million in 2003 by Woolcott and his wife, Susan. Woolcott is known for his work at the property spruiking firm Property Fox, and before that he was with the merchant bank Ansbacher & Co in London.
Blundy, the bulky-goods entrepreneur, is still trying to sell his redundant Pearl Beach weekender (pictured above). The NSW central coast beachfront has now been advertised through Stuart Gan of PRDnationwide Ettalong Beach with $3 million hopes. The Coral Crescent house last sold for $3.8 million in 2007. It is redundant to the Blundys’ needs, as they spent $5.8 million to upgrade to another beachfront property six doors away.
New Zealanders Tim Wood and his wife, Sasha, have yet to sell Dalrye (pictured above), their Victorian mansion in Waverley, NSW, after it was withdrawn from auction last weekend through McGrath agent Bethwyn Richards. It was only last year that the couple were living in France when they spotted the Victoria Street property on the internet. The grand 1890 Italianate residence was bought sight unseen for $4.76 million after bidding by telephone from France. Since the couple bought the 679-square-metre property, they have renovated the residence, but recently decided to move to Udaipur in Rajasthan, northern India, where they intend to build a lakeside eco-resort.
Tim and his brother, Nick Wood, are co-founders of the pioneering internet service provider ihug, which was New Zealand's third-largest internet service provider before the company was bought and then absorbed by Vodafone New Zealand. The sons of an Air New Zealand pilot and a real estate agent, the Wood brothers started ihug with an $8000 loan from their father.
The underbidders at Dalrye’s 2010 auction have since bought on Tipper Avenue, Bronte for $4,925,000, so they weren’t around this time. Dalyre had previously sold in 1991 for $900,000, after its renovation by merchant banker Mark Burrows. The record Waverley record subsequently hit $6.3 million last September when the architect Michael Suttor and his wife, Georgie, sold their 1890s abode through Bradfield & Prichard Double Bay agent Georgia Cleary to the Thompson family. It had previously traded as a derelict boarding house for $500,000 in 1987.
It hasn’t taken long for the latest raft of real estate reality television show contestants to cash in on their fleeting fame. The Pymble mother of three Jodie Bursill – a contestant on the new Jamie Durie renovation show Top Design – and husband Andrew have listed their Pymble, NSW, residence (pictured above) for sale. The Bursill family’s five-bedroom renovated 1950s Crown Road property is on the market with $2 million hopes through McGrath agent Carol McCrea. It cost $475,000 in 1998.
Title Tattle aims to tell you as soon as we know – often before it happens – so that rumoured $7.85 million Dalkeith, WA, riverfront block (pictured above) has now been registered. It did sell to a neighbour – none other than mining billionaire Gina Rinehart. It last sold at $4.5 million in 2006 and $3.5 million in 2004. It takes her holding from 9,350 square metres to 10,950 square metres. Given the price she paid per square metre, it takes the land value of her compound to $53 million. That's almost the same as the $57.5 million price that Angela Bennett, that other mining heiress, got in 2009 for her compound at Mosman Park when Willie Porteous of William Porteous Properties International smashed the Australian sales record for the 7,567-square-metre Swan River estate.
And don’t say that Title Tattle told you, but that Gold Coast real estate agency that used a sexy stripping model to market a prestigious property last year is back seeking viral headlines using a gangster.
The latest video ad from Neo Property Surfers Paradise shows the Gold Coast as a gangster's paradise. A mob boss character with busty women draped across his arm is shown around a Paradise Point luxury home by a dwarf. Little wonder the ads haven't gone down well with the REIQ or other agents. And more to the point, the initial marketing ploy hasn't paid, off as the 600,000 You Tube viewings haven’t elicited a single buyer. And for the Gold Coast to be depicted as a gangster's paradise won't do much for the latest listing. It's a little too close to reality.
