Bank chief Joe Fayyad buys $9.3m house of failed Ralan boss

Leading investment banker Joe Fayyad has bought new digs in keeping with his appointment last year as the local head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The former Goldman Sachs executive has bought the Bellevue Hill home of William O’Dwyer, founder of collapsed property empire Ralan Group, for $9.26 million.

The purchase marks a decent step up the property ladder for Fayyad, who has been renting the Bondi Beach investment pad of stockbroker Rob Fiani, having sold his Randwick home to former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika in 2013 for $3.1 million.

The Fairweather Street property was listed with Sotheby’s Michael Pallier with an $8.5 million guide in March, two years after O’Dwyer’s Ralan collapsed with debts of more than $560 million.

Pallier was keeping schtum on the buyer’s identity, but with wall-to-wall buyer’s agents at the auction it was only a matter of time before the mystery client of Chalk Road buyer’s agent Ed Flitcroft was revealed.

Quick trades on the Pittwater waterfront

Former Bitcoin trader, and current head of trading for APAC at global options trading company Akuna Capital, Toby Allen turned 36 this week, and what better present to buy himself than the Palm Beach getaway of retired coal miner Trevor Bailey.

There were gag orders preventing Sasha de Bilde, of Pittwater Property, revealing the sale price, but sources say Allen paid about $13.5 million, which is a little more than the $13 million it passed in for at last month’s auction.

The sale price didn’t quite reach the $14.95 million original hopes earlier this year, but is almost double the $7 million it last traded for in 2013 when sold by opal exporters Lyn and Tom van Brugge.

Bondi Beach-based Allen isn’t the only Aussie expat trader at the Chicago-headquartered Akuna Capital heading home during the pandemic: co-founder Andrew Killion returned last year and bought a $30 million mansion in Vaucluse from media scion Alexander Ma, and Toby Joy has bought on Mosman’s Balmoral slopes for $12.4 million.

Allen’s purchase has been left in the shade of this week’s top sale, the Gaelforce trophy home of London-based jet-setters Gael and Francesco Boglione. Peter Robinson, of LJ Hooker Palm Beach, will only say it sold in line with its $19.5 million guide, but the local rumour mill is already touting an $18.7 million result.

At least Robinson did dismiss rumours it was bought by Boost Juice founder and Australian Survivor contestant Janine Allis and her husband Jeff, who have been two of the most active house hunters on the northern end of the peninsula since they sold their Toorak mansion for more than $20 million in March.

Tech entrepreneur Robin Khuda clearly hasn’t satisfied his appetite for Palm Beach real estate either. The chief and co-founder of AirTrunk has lodged a claim on the waterfront house a few doors from Gaelforce that was recently on offer by Peter Robinson for $5.8 million.

This makes it his fourth Palm Beach purchase since last August and takes the tally of his property investment splurge to about $74 million in the past 12 months alone.

Avoca Beach scores a new record

Pastoralist Kim Cottle, wife of FDC construction group founder Ben Cottle, and their daughters Emma and Georgia have emerged as the buyers behind Avoca Beach’s recent $7 million record on the beachfront.

The Woollahra-based Cottles are one of the largest farmland owners in the Southern Highlands and Southern Tablelands, with more than 5400 hectares of farmland, including a recently added 1690 hectares at Tarlo for $14.9 million

The Cottles were forced to pay more than $1 million more than the $5.5 million to $6 million guide set by McGrath’s Steven Nixon when the beachfront property, called The Pines, went to auction in February. That resulted in a decent windfall on the $4 million price it last traded for in 2017 when purchased by Pinnacle Integrity chief Shane White.

Also staking a claim on the Central Coast holiday home market is recently retired Westpac senior executive Curt Zuber, who has bought a Copacabana getaway for $3.5 million.

Zuber’s purchase of the six-bedroom contemporary digs follows the sale of his Elanora Heights trophy home earlier this year for $10.5 million to downsize to Mosman’s Balmoral slopes for $4.6 million.

Darling Point flying high

The more than $11 million buyer of the Darling Point pad of former Qantas chief Geoff Dixon and his wife Dawn is property developer Robert Pagliuso and his wife Leify.

The purchase by Pagliuso, founder of Trend Living, makes him a near neighbour to his mate Arash Tavakoli, at least until the monster renovation is complete on the Rose Bay waterfront Tavakoli purchased in 2018 for $30 million.

Alex Lyons, of Raine & Horne Double Bay, wouldn’t confirm talk from multiple sources who billed Pagliouso as the buyer of Dixon’s apartment, but, by rights, he should be trumpeting the sale result given it was well above the $10 million guide.

The parkside spread last traded five years ago for $8.65 million when sold by Sandra and Victor Topper, of the AI Topper hides trader family.

Potts Point’s double deal

Former pharmaceutical rich lister David Duchen sold his adjoining Potts Point sub-penthouses this week, pocketing more than $11 million for them combined.

The first to go was his own apartment for more than $7 million, and follows the death of his wife, lawyer and Manly Sea Eagles’ number one fan Brenda Duchen last year.

A few days later Jason Boon, of Richardson & Wrench, sold Duchen’s adjoining apartment for what a local source said was about $4 million – less than the $4.25 million guide.

The two apartments in developer Garry Rothwell’s Winten Group were purchased for about $2.7 million each, the first in 2001 and the remaining pad in 2009.

Son Steve Duchen is also a Potts Point local, having purchased the penthouse and a studio below in the nearby Omnia building two years ago for $15.7 million.

Property developers splash the cash

Jia Sanhui, the 33-year-old wife of Chet Qiang, head of Chinese-backed property development giant Vic Investments Group, has taken a shine to eastern suburbs real estate of late.

The Mosman-based Sanhui purchased a grand 1937-built mansion in Vaucluse for $10.66 million last year from the British Foreign Office, and last week settled on the modernist Point Piper residence for $15.05 million.

The Point Piper digs is the house designed by the late architect Anatol Kagan for the late property developer Walter Rivkin, father of the late Rene, and previously home to race car driver and developer Ash Samadi.

Samadi listed it with D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay, earlier this year and it sold under the hammer in March.

Sanhui’s purchase comes as her Mosman home in Clifton Gardens is set to to go auction on May 15 for $7 million.

VIMG bills itself as an integrated residential and commercial property development and fund management company with more than $1 billion invested in Australia, including the 43-level tower in St Leonards known as The Landmark nearing completion.