Olympic swimmer Mark Kerry buys $12 million house across the road in Darling Point

Former Olympic swimmer and K2 Recruitment co-founder Mark Kerry and his interior designer wife Lynda have not strayed far for their new home following the sale of their Darling Point home last year for $18 million. The couple recently crossed the road to exchange more than $12 million for the home of lawyer Pamela Jack.

Jack, a partner at Australia’s largest law firm MinterEllison, has owned the three-level residence since 1999 when it was sold for $2.09 million by nightclub owner Barry Wain.

Its latest sale result was not disclosed by Richardson & Wrench Elizabeth Bay’s Jason Boon, but the original $14 million guide of 2018 had been discounted to $12 million shortly before it sold and sources say the Kerrys paid more than that.

Kerry, who won gold in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, bought his former home on the high side of Eastbourne Road in 2015 for $8.5 million from Renee Pinshaw, wife of corporate heavyweight Jonathan Pinshaw. After a major redesign that featured in Belle magazine in 2018, it sold last October to property developer Andrew Wiesener, founder of Crownland Developments.

Wiesener’s purchase marks a return to the eastern suburbs. Formerly based on the waterfront at Watsons Bay, Wiesener has been a Palm Beach local in recent years since he bought Jill Wran’s weekender in 2017 for $6.9 million.

Finger’s zippy buy in Bellevue Hill

As the value of buy-now, pay-later giant Zip Co soared this week on the back of a buyout of US payments company QuadPay, chief information officer Adam Finger had already traded up his Sydney real estate.

After a year of house hunting in the eastern suburbs, Finger has snapped up the Bellevue Hill home of orthopedic surgeon Mark Nabarro and his wife Gillian for less than the $8 million guide on the same day that it hit the market.

Finger, the 36-year-old son of Ray White Double Bay sales veteran Michael Finger, joined Zip Co in 2014, just a year after the credit card disrupter was founded by Larry Diamond and Peter Gray.

The Afterpay rival acquired 85 per cent of New York-based QuadPay earlier this week for $446 million worth of Zip shares, setting its own share price soaring from $3.75 last Friday to a high of $6.35 just under a week later.

Finger’s new home is not far from the contemporary Rose Bay residence bought by Zip Co’s chief Larry Diamond for $5.12 million in 2018.

Picking a winner in Lavender Bay

Irish-born thoroughbred horse owner Fergus Doyle has bought the Lavender Bay duplex of entrepreneur Joseph Chou and his wife Suzanne Ho for about $11 million.

Sources say the purchase by Doyle, a part-owner in the 2014 Melbourne Cup winner Protectionist, is set to be a downsize of sorts from his long-held Longueville home.

Ray White Lower North Shore’s David Gillan was gagged by confidentiality orders from confirming the widely tipped $11 million sale price. The off-market sale comes seven years after it last traded for $5.6 million when sold by former BT Australia executive and long-distance runner Bob Vagg.

Chou, chief of property investment firm Ironfish, upgraded to a $7.13 million sub-penthouse in the nearby Bridgehill Residences tower two years ago.

Greenwood cashes in on Northbridge home 

Money man Ross Greenwood has shaken off the start of Australia’s first recession in almost 30 years with a bullish $5 million sale of his Northbridge home.

The broadcast veteran and Nine’s long-time finance editor quit Macquarie Media’s Money News program late last year after a decade at 2GB amid plans to take a year off and spend time travelling with his wife Tanya.

And while the COVID-19 pandemic has put an end to their travel plans, it didn’t dent their bid to cash in on the family home thanks to a buyer introduced by buyer’s agent Peter Kelaher, of PK Property. Records show the $5 million result more than doubles the $2.36 million Tanya paid for the six-bedroom home in 2003.