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A three-storey Bellevue Hill house with sweeping views of Sydney Harbour has sold for $15.58 million to neighbour and GWS Giants deputy chairman Adrian Fonseca.
Dozens gathered to watch the three-bedroom house at 6a Ginahgulla Road go under the hammer on Saturday, including 16 registered buyers. The home had a price guide of $11.5 million.
Bidding opened at $8 million and six active buyers pushed the price up in $1 million and $500,000 increments up until the $14 million mark.
Bidding continued from there in smaller increments until the gavel fell after a final $15.58 million bid from buyer’s agent Simon Cohen, director of Cohen Handler, who declined to comment on who the successful purchaser was.
Independent sources who were at the auction confirmed Cohen was bidding on behalf of Fonseca, who lives next door.
The GWS Giants deputy chairman and childcare businessman paid more for the property than his current home, which he purchased for $14.35 million in 2018. Consolidating neighbouring properties to create a family compound is a growing trend in the prestige market.
More than a dozen vied for the keys to the home.Credit:
He was not the only neighbour hoping to beef up family land holdings. Among the crowd were fellow neighbours, the Scheinbergs, of the wealthy cattle and property investment family, who purchased the 5700-square-metre Rona estate that sold for $58 million in 2018.
Damien Cooley, of Cooley Auctions, said it was a great result for a suburb that was close to city and lifestyle amenities.
”Bellevue Hill is the hottest market in Sydney at the moment. It’s a lot closer to the city than Vaucluse and Watsons Bay, and you’ve got fabulous views over the harbour.“
The property was the deceased estate of Anne Angles, wife of the late philanthropist rag trader Emery Angles. The home was sold by Michael Dunn of Richardson & Wrench Double Bay.
The property was one of 736 Sydney homes scheduled to go under the hammer on Saturday. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 73.9 per cent from 440 reported results, while 81 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In Ryde, a classic family home at 2 Dorothy Street passed in on a vendor bid of $2.5 million.
The five-bedroom house on 872 square metres was guided at $2.65 million. Four buyers registered to bid, three of who were developers, but all remained silent when auctioneer Michael Garofolo called for an opening bid.
The home later sold for $2.68 million in post auction negotiations. The reserve was 2.7 million.
Auctioneer Michael Garofolo passed the Ryde property in on a vendor bid of $2.5 million. Credit: Peter Rae
Selling agent Tony Abboud of The Agency North West said the market was shifting.
“It’s turning from a good market to a balanced market. And I think there’s that transition period and people don’t know how to interpret that.”
Abboud said the mature tree in the front yard had put off some developers on auction day.
In Lilyfield, a house that was on the market for the first time in more than 65 years sold for $2,635,000 on Saturday.
The three-bedroom house at 30 Cecily Street was last purchased for £850 in 1957, records show. The home had a price guide of $2.4 million, revised up from an initial guide of $2.2 million to $2.3 million, based on buyer feedback.
Eight buyers – a mix of developers and families – registered to bid on the 323-square-metre block.
Four of them participated in the auction, which was slow to start at $2.1 million, but numerous bids followed, pushing the price past the $2.3 million reserve. The house sold to an inner west buyer who plans to build their dream home.
Selling agent David Carrozza of Cobden and Hayson Annandale said the owners had been willing to sell at a reasonable price.
“It’s a very strong result,” Carrozza said. “The reserve was set well below that.
“[The result was] based on strong competition and lack of stock. There’s just not many on the market. I’m not getting the sense we’re going to have an influx of properties [in spring].”
In Greenwich, an architecturally designed home at 38 Ronald Avenue sold for $4.93 million to an upper north shore family wanting to be closer to the city.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house was built in 2002 after it was designed by owner and architect Lara Calder.
Four families registered to bid on the double brick home which had a guide of between $4.2 million and $4.62 million.
Bidding started at $4 million and all four parties competed, pushing the bidding up in $100,000 increments until $4.5 million, where it slowed down to smaller bids. The reserve was $4.6 million.
Raine & Horne Lower North Shore’s Mary-Anne Fitzgerald said the suburb was tightly held and many buyers spent years trying to find the right home to move into.
She said they were noticing more buyers negotiating contract terms in the current high-interest rate environment.
“There are more 5 per cent deposits and longer settlement requests. Banks are not keen on bridging finance,” Fitzgerald said. “In order for the sale to go through [today], if we didn’t have longer settlements for three of those four bidders they wouldn’t be able to bid, and we would have sold it for 10 per cent less.”
The home last traded for $615,000 in 1999, records show, the price multiplying by more than eight in that time.
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