Top 20 Sydney trophy home listings shrink in 2019
Even if there’s a rush of listings, with just 13 weeks until Christmas, many leading estate agents are wondering whether they will have sufficient sales commission to buy the family presents to put under the tree.
It looks like 2019 will see the fewest, and cheapest, tally of Sydney trophy home sales in the past seven years. Last year all top 20 sales sold for $20 million or more, grossing $675 million, up on $550 million worth in 2017.
But my tally so far sees just $325 million, with $12 million sales sufficient to qualify for the 2019 list. And the year’s top sale, which was Alex Ma’s $30 million Vaucluse in March, appears not to be proceeding to settlement. There will likely be a forfeited 10 per cent deposit.
That leaves a $23.5 million Rose Bay harbourfront sale (pictured above) sitting in top spot having sold to lawyer Amanda Banton through Ben Collier of The Agency.
There are unsubstantiated claims of two $15 million Mosman sales.
The Wentworth Courier reported in August there had been a $60 million offer from a Hong Kong buyer for Ganeden (below), the Vaucluse home of lawyer John Landerer. But this hasn’t eventuated in a sale.
It sits next to La Mer, which James Packer and his then wife Erica sold in 2015 for $70 million in what ranks as the third-highest sale of all time through Christie’s agent Ken Jacobs.
Matt Allen’s Darling Point house is forlornly for sale having come with a starting guide price of $70 million in March last year.
A Coolong Rd, Vaucluse home (below) comes with a $55 million price tag. Pastoralist Garrick Hawkins and wife Evelyn started its public marketing this week through Jacobs.
There are whispers Bomera, the Italianate mansion at Potts Point, has had a $35 million plus offer. I’d reckon it would be the perfect bolthole for the steel baron Sanjeev Gupta who’s set to downsize from his Barford, Bellevue Hill rental.
The upper North Shore sees Mandalay, the Federation Queen Anne-style Gordon home to Jane and Geoff Selig, listed with record $14.5 million hopes.
The lack of sales is causing severe stress at estate agencies.
So bad even bitter rivals McGrath and The Agency could possibly contemplate mutual solutions. The debt free McGrath has $10 million cash to potentially buy back its glory days.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.