The Wentworth Rd, Vaucluse, home sold for $57m, the highest price so far this year.
A consortium of expats bought Sydney’s most expensive house so far this year, a Vaucluse mansion that fetched $57m via Gavin Rubinstein.
In an exclusive interview, the TRG founder says he can’t name the buyers of The Peninsula House in Wentworth Rd owned by property magnate Steve Grant and his wife, Eliza, which he sold off-market on April 2.
But he says the purchasers were four separate Aussies residing in different locations — from within Asia and Dubai — who saw the three-storey designer mansion on a 700sqm block as a “safe haven” for their money.
“It seems that at the upper end of the market, the expat buyers are looking to come back, Australia is a safe haven and a safe place,” Rubinstein said.
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The mansion was snapped up by four Aussie expats living in different countries.
It’s built over three levels.
The Vaucluse thumper wasn’t an isolated expat sale: it’s one of three Rubinstein negotiated this year, with the Eastbourne Rd, Darling Point home of tailor Patrick Johnson and his designer wife Tamsin Johnson going for $21m to an expat based in Hong Kong; and a third confidential $20m sale also to an expat in the UK.
And Rubinstein, who now has offices in Rose Bay, Woollahra, Hunters Hill and Dubai, says that despite the war, higher interest rates and talk of a looming global recession, it’s business as usual for him.
“People always need somewhere to live and they particularly love Sydney’s east,” he said.
“I think the market holistically is a hell of a lot more positive than the headlines are making it out to be.
“Not including this $57m sale, December, February and March were my biggest three months in terms of outcomes that I secured on behalf of my vendors.
“When I was working in the GFC [the global financial crisis of 2007-2009] that was a bad market, with no buyers coming through and vendors were losing 10, 20 or 30 per cent on what they bought for.
The buyers loved the wide frontage to the waterfront.
After buying the home for $14m in 2013, the Grants called in Stafford Architecture and Hare + Klein interior designers for a revamp.
“Now no-one’s losing money, everyone is making great profits, on the basis of them holding the property for a reasonable amount of time.
“While the climate has changed — it is challenging, no-one’s delusional — it’s not like it was two years ago, there is still a deep stream of buyers and if you have an agent who understands the current climate and the process to maximise the value of the asset there is a lot of opportunity for vendors.”
The guru believes the “fear-making is coming from the press” highlighting “perceived price drops” of particular homes where the price was unrealistic or the strategy was wrong.
He says homeowners are still achieving good results, when you consider their overall profits.
Among his examples:
* The Johnsons in Darling Point, who’d bought for $10.05m in 2020: “They did a reno and I got $21m for them, it was a good price.”
* 50 Bunyula Rd, Bellevue Hill:“They bought it for $5.466m in October, 2020, spent about $50k to $100k on it and sold it in march for circa $9m,” he said.
* 322 Military Rd, Vaucluse: “They bought it for $3.55m in August, 2020, spent $50k on a renovation and I sold it in March for $6.25m.”
* 9 Village Lower Rd, Vaucluse: “They bought it for $5.8m in September, 2015, spent $100k and I sold it in April for circa $10.5m.”
Meanwhile, the Grants in Wentworth Rd, Vaucluse, had bought a Michael Suttor-designed home on the exclusive harbour peninsula, Point Seymour, for $14m in 2013 and called in Stafford Architecture and Hare + Klein interior designers for a revamp.
Every room has a water view.
The expat buyers saw the home as a “safe haven” for their money.
Rubinstein introduced the buyers to the house for the first time six months ago and they’d been negotiating on the price over the past three months.
“What made it special — and it was very special — was the width of the waterfrontage, about 15m or 16m, so the whole house is connected to the water and you have views from every room,” he said.
“It’s in one of my personal favourite spots and the other reason the buyers liked it as opposed to a bunch of others was that there was no work required, it was a first-class build, high quality and it ticked the boxes, a double garage with internal access, a lift, multiple living areas, a boat house, jetty, gym, steam room and cellar.”
7 Wallaroy Rd, Woollahra has a guide of $18.2m for a May 27 auction.
Rubinstein is expecting his latest big listing, of the Wallaroy Rd, Woollahra home of investment firm KKR’s co-head of Australia, David Lang and his academic wife, Dearbhail, to do well. It goes to auction on May 27 with an $18.2m guide.
Prestige property valuer Simon Feilich, who compiled The Dyson Austen Top 10 Prestige Residential Survey, recently for News Corp that showed the total value of the top sales was down $74m on a year ago, said of the Rubinstein $57m sale: “There is still demand for quality waterfront property … buyers are being more prudent, they haven’t taken their bat and ball and gone home, they just want better value and that’s OK.”
Before Rubinstein’s sale, the highest price for the year had been 12 Dumaresq Rd, Rose Bay, which sold in the $45m-$48m range.
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