Max Delmege's Sydney northern beaches property finally gets over the line
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It’s the type of sale that gives banks, receivers and even some estate agents a bad name. The resort-like Mona Vale beachfront residence of veteran property developer Max Delmege has been finally sold for around $3.5 million. It was a steal.
Regrettably the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles powerbroker had let it be known during its initial marketing that it ought sell for close to its $9 million valuation that followed its impressive 2008 renovation.
Despite hopes of starting the auction proceedings at $6 million plus, the house was passed in without a bid through Ray White Prestige agent Michael King at that October 2010 auction.
There had been $7 million hopes for it when Bank West put the property to initial auction. Just a few doors away the 808-square-metre beachfront cottage retreat of H. Lindsay Thompson, the retired professor who was president of the AMA from 1982 to 1985, had been listed with $5 million, giving some price expectation validation.
By December the bank would have taken around $6 million for the Delmege property.
The two-level Surfview Road house on an 870-square-metre block was relisted for May auction with all the furniture of his estrange wife Narelle now removed. There were pre-auction offers around $4.5 million, but no sale since the bank wanted around $5.5 million.
The most dramatic price reduction has been over the recent marketing when new listing agents took its pricing from $4.5 million plus to mid-$3 million before and after its August auction, according to RP Data. There was again no bid at the auction, given savvy buyers are playing tough tactics. It sold for a reputed but unconfirmed $3.5 million. It was sold by Max Walls International.
The title has caveats from ING Bank and Capital Finance in addition to the first mortgage from Bank of West Australia.
For many years Delmege was the financial saviour of his beloved Sea Eagles, pumping millions into the club he co-owned.
He’s lived on the northern beaches since 1965, starting his own real estate office in Avalon in 1967.
Delmege has fought back before as in 1987, a development in Mona Vale went sour and he "lost everything". He bought himself a weekly bus, train and ferry pass and pounded the pavements, and he reckons he can do it again.
"Being brought up in Maroubra, it's pretty easy to reinvent yourself," he told the Sydney media.
His latest incarnation is as a weekend radio broadcaster on 2SM. And doesn’t he dish it out to the banks.