Luxurious Sydney home that doesn’t even exist yet fetches $61.7m

The pinnacle of Sydney’s luxury apartment market has scored a new sale to rank among the most expensive of them all, bumping former garbo-turned-billionaire Ian Malouf from the top three deals.

Lendlease’s One Circular Quay tower on the CBD harbourside has notched up a flurry of off-the-plan sales in recent weeks, one of which is a sub-penthouse for $61.7 million.

It is one of five apartments to sell in the yet-to-be-built tower since mid-September, totalling $157 million worth of sales by Apex Investments agency.

That should give the new apartment market a much-needed fillip, and it marks a refreshing change from headlines of years past when it languished as a giant pile of rubble while ownership passed from one developer to another.

What was once Gold Fields House was demolished in 2017 by Chinese developer Dalian Wanda. Then a crackdown on offshore development by the Chinese government saw ownership pass to the Yugu Group of exiled billionaire and Chinese political donor Huang Xiangmo.

After Huang was deemed unfit to hold an Australian passport in 2019, the site went to AWH Investments, who sold it in 2022 for $850 million.

The 58-level, $3 billion building project by Lendlease in partnership with Mitsubishi Estate Asia has six sub-penthouses, so there’s more to go around, and a three-level penthouse that is expected to sell for more than $140 million.

Sydney’s reigning residential record of $140 million was set in 2019 by Lendlease’s other landmark project in Barangaroo, at One Sydney Harbour, for a three-level consolidation of the penthouse and a sub-penthouse.

The latest sale leaves billionaire James Packer with silver in the apartment record stakes thanks to his $72 million bachelor pad in Crown’s One Barangaroo and puts Malouf’s $60 million penthouse atop the ANZ tower in fourth place.

Love Island house reruns

Spotify Australia boss Mikaela Lancaster and iflix founder Mark Britt look like they’ll cop a loss on their striking Byron Bay getaway Amileka, known to reality TV aficionados for hosting the 2021 season of Love Island Australia.

The Croydon-based couple have listed the 10-hectare property with McGrath’s Nick Dunn, who launched it on Friday with a guide of $8 million to $9 million.

It last traded in 2022 for $9.5 million and would need to sell for well over $10 million if the couple were to break even, given $600,000 in stamp duty alone.

The white box-style residence has proved a loss-maker before. Oroton heir Tom Lane bought it in 2011 for $4 million, and sold it in 2015 for $3.5 million.

Volatile trade

Toby Allen, a former bitcoin trader who last year founded the Chicago-headquartered volatility hedge fund Laniakea Fund, has bought the designer Woollahra house of medical entrepreneur Dr Glenn Haifer for $16.1 million.

The result wasn’t the $17 million Haifer was hoping for originally but it beat the revised guide of $15 million that Ray White’s Riki Tawhara set in order to get the deal done. Even after the lavish Blainey North redesign, Haifer has doubled his money on the $6.3 million he paid for it in 2018.

Good neighbour

A historic Colonial Georgian residence in Millers Point isn’t the usual type of real estate linked to colourful property developer Antoine Bechara, given he is best known for his high-rise apartment blocks in Strathfield’s Golden Triangle.

But the Abbotsford-based developer had owned the 1826-built houses with strict heritage protections in place since 2017, when they were sold by the state government for $6.3 million, and there has been a partial renovation more recently.

Bechara has called time on the dwelling, which was split into neighbouring semis in 1899 and has long been owned in one line. Last month it was listed with McGrath’s Richard Shalhoub for a guide of $7.5 million, and it promptly sold.

The sale price has not been disclosed, but the buyer is next-door neighbour and Gilbert & Tobin partner John Schembri.

Schembri was among the first wave of high-end shoppers to swoop on the former housing commission neighbourhood in the state government selloff a decade ago, paying $4.23 million for historic Grimes Cottage in 2015 and undertaking an impressive restoration since.

The heritage property’s title records don’t disclose only the buyer’s identity. There is also a caveat on behalf of the NSW Chief Commissioner of State Revenue, claiming an interest on the sale proceeds for outstanding land tax.

Also sold last week was the Manly home of Goodman Australia chief and former Wallaby Jason Little and his wife Bridget. The Agency’s Jake Rowe was bound by gag orders from discussing the result, but he had a guide of $15 million to $16.5 million.

The Littles are off to Bondi Beach, where they’ve paid $23 million for a gutted shell atop the Hall & Campbell development.