Macquarie Bank's top earner Nick O’Kane buys $40m Point Piper trophy home

Macquarie Bank’s top-earning commodities executive Nick O’Kane flew back to Australia from the United States last year, one of tens of thousands of expats who managed to get back into the country to ride out the pandemic from home.

O’Kane, the head of commodities markets and finance, returns not only cashed up – thanks to a pay packet that totals more than $26 million this year – but is now also well housed, following his recent purchase of Sydney’s most expensive house sold this year, the Point Piper home of Sydney Football Club chairman Scott Barlow, for about $40 million.

Prestige agents say O’Kane leads an increasingly crowded buyer’s market of locals, and foreign buyers from the US, United Kingdom and Europe vying for a dwindling number of prestige homes amid one of the most pronounced property booms in decades.

It says something of the tight market conditions that Barlow and his wife Alina, the daughter of Russian billionaire David Traktovenko, were quietly offering their Tzannes Associates-designed home to buyers for years before it sold last month. Selling agent Brad Pillinger, of Pillinger’s, has repeatedly declined to comment on the buyer or sale price, but independent sources confirmed O’Kane purchase. Settlement will confirm the sale price.

O’Kane isn’t the only expat being credited with some of Sydney’s recent top sales.

News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch reportedly bought a boat shed on almost 2000 square metres in Point Piper in March for more than $37 million, and late last year the co-founder of trading firm Akuna Capital Andrew Killion returned from Chicago to buy a Vaucluse mansion for $30 million.

In March, the Hunters Hill trophy home Bulwarra was bought for less than $18 million by returning expat lawyer Brooke Lindsay, general counsel at United Arab Emirates telco Etisalat, and Macquarie Capital’s global executive chairman David Roseman upgraded his Sydney base paying $16.6 million for the Point Piper home of JP Morgan boss Paul Uren.

“Our borders being closed has created a unique situation whereby the ultra-wealthy population of Australia has grown over the past year, so there are more buyers looking to upsize or buy another property for their portfolio,” said Knight Frank’s head of residential research Michelle Ciesielski.

Knight Frank figures show Sydney’s prime property market – defined as the upper 5 per cent of sales – saw values rise 2 per cent in the March quarter alone.

Ken Jacobs, of Christie’s International, says as well as expats, foreigners from the US are leading the foreign buyers.

“Even if they won’t live here right now they’re willing to pay the taxes to buy because there’s a real sense among many of them that the US is a powder keg at the moment.”

Sotheby’s Michael Pallier said that in the years prior to the pandemic, about 20 per cent of his buyers were new migrant arrivals, but that buyer sector had completely disappeared since the borders closed a year ago, and have increasingly been replaced by expats who either plan to return or have already done so.

Pallier points to his sale this week of an apartment in Woolloomooloo’s Finger Wharf for $3.4 million to an expat in Hong Kong, purchased sight unseen.

Eastern suburbs beaches agent Alexander Phillips, of PPD, says one in 10 of his buyers are recently returned expats but up to about 25 per cent have been back since the pandemic started, bringing a sense of urgency to their purchase.

“They’re often still living in a furnished apartment with none of their own furniture and they just want to get settled in their own place,” he said.

Phillips adds that the slew of recent sales in the Bronte and Tamarama area for more than $10 million show there is turnover of top-end stock. “Those sorts of houses would have sat on the market almost a year a few years ago but they’re selling in two weeks now,” Phillips said.

Knight Frank’s Ms Ciesielski said they saw a significant increase in inquiry from overseas as soon as the pandemic hit.

“These expat buyers fall into three groups: those who never intended to come back but are now considering it; those who are making changes to return; and those who were always intending to move back because they already own here but are planning to upgrade here,” she said.

Fuelling the appeal for Australian real estate is not just the successful handling of the spread of COVID-19, but an influx of Hollywood stars shopping down under. Take Zac Efron’s purchase of a $2 million parcel of land north of Byron Bay, Natalie Portman papped house hunting in the Hunter Valley this week, and Aussie expat Isla Fisher and her husband Sacha Baron Cohen house hunting in the eastern suburbs.