Aussie John Symond: How the famous trophy home collector swapped humble cottages for epic mansions

As one of Aussie John Symond’s early buys into the housing market, the $13,250 worker’s cottage in Alexandria was a fairly humble one, even by the more affordable standards of 1973.

The Belmont Street property was priced well below Sydney’s then median of $27,400 and at a time when home loan interest rates ranged from 6.25 per cent to 7.75 per cent.

There was also little indication that the 26-year-old “builder” named on title would later go on to reshape Australia’s home-loan market and build arguably the most expensive house in the country for which he was offered more than $100 million last year.

Or maybe there was. By all accounts, Symond thought he’d won the lottery when, just six months after he bought the Alexandria cottage, he sold it for $15,500 to a builder from Ballina. It was Symond’s first house purchase, but not his first property foray in the then-slum neighbourhood in Sydney’s inner west.

As he recalls, during the late 1960s, he and fellow undergraduate John Cannon and other mates each bought a studio in a rundown block of apartments in Newtown. In the lift there was a sign that read: “Please do not urinate in the elevator”.

He sold it a few years later for a modest profit, but Symond’s place on this year’s Financial Review Rich List – worth $621 million – is less because of his varied property investments and more thanks to his financing the property appetites of thousands of other Australians.

In 1992, Symond made two momentous property moves. Records show he set a north shore record for that year when he sold his grand Pymble Federation mansion Barkstone for $3.25 million. And he launched Aussie Home Loans as an alternative home-loan and mortgage broker.

The Pymble property proved far less lucrative than his new business, despite its bullish sale price. Symond had paid $1.7 million for the 1906-built mansion, with tennis court and pool, in 1988 and during his ownership undertook a major restoration and renovation, reported at the time to be worth $5 million. It is currently for sale for $8.5 million.

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Meanwhile, Aussie Home Loans had established itself as a market leader by 2000 with a loan book of $9.3 billion, and Symond made his debut on the BRW Rich List 200 in 2003 with a worth of $158 million.

However, he made his name as one of the Australia’s most significant home owners in 1998 when he bought a 2700-square-metre site on the Point Piper waterfront for $10.5 million and commissioned architect Alec Tzannes to design his landmark home, Wingadal.

The fact that Symond said no to the more-than-$100 million offer by a buyer from China last year speaks not only to how house proud he is of the four-level residence, but also to his confidence in the future fortunes of Australia’s property market.