Sydney's trophy home market goes from bad to worse amid fears top sale set to fall over

As the spring selling season kicks off on Sunday, the trophy home market is on track to record the worst run of big-ticket sales since 2012 amid fears one of the year’s few such top-end deals is set to fall over.

There have been only a handful of sales to scrape into the rarefied $20 million-plus trophy home range this year, the highest of which was an exchange of at least $28 million on the Vaucluse mansion of press scion Alexander Ma.

Following widespread rumours among prestige agents that the sale had collapsed, the agent who sold it, Peter Leipnik of BadgerFox, confirmed settlement had been pushed out a few times since it exchanged almost six months ago.

While no sale result was disclosed at the time, sources say it exchanged for $28 million and Leipnik now says it sold for more than $30 million.

“We’re preparing it to return it to the market, but we’ll know in the next few days if we need to or not,” Leipnik said. “It won’t necessarily be a bad thing for our vendor if it falls through because the buyer had exchanged on a full 10 per cent deposit.”

The mystery buyer would be forgoing a deposit of more than $2.8 million if they walk away from the deal.

Alexander Ma, the son of Hong Kong press baron Ching-Kwan Ma, would know better than most the huge difference between the state of the 2019 and 2018 trophy markets – he was one of many buyers who made up last year’s record-breaking run of trophy sales, totalling more than $672 million in the top 20 sales alone.

Ma paid a total of $56 million for two neighbouring waterfront houses on Vaucluse’s Carrara Road amid plans to redevelop the site into three luxury homes.

In September last year Australia’s house price record was smashed when tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie bought the Fairfax family’s Fairwater estate in Point Piper for $100 million.

By comparison, if Ma’s sale falls over that would leave this year’s highest sale, to date, at $23.56 million paid by high-profile corporate lawyer Amanda Banton for the Rose Bay waterfront home of property baron Stephen Burcher through Ben Collier, of The Agency.

“Clearly there’s a depleted appetite for selling at that level,” said Domain research analyst Eliza Owen.

“Given the current global economic uncertainty as the US and China work through their trade negotiations, high-end home owners will want to see the outcome of the political chasm before they make decisions about selling.”

Ken Jacobs, of Christie’s International, says the irony is that the best historic performers in terms of trophy sales are those who kept their sights on the long-term, not the immediate headwinds.

“Sellers don’t want to be perceived to be under pressure to sell, especially when they’re not,” said Mr Jacobs, who sold the $100 million Fairwater estate.

This year’s other trophy sales include the Rose Bay waterfront house next door to Banton’s that sold for $22.6 million to Amway China’s Zhijian Zhou and Guo Ying Ou; the Point Piper home of insurance boss Richard Enthoven for more than $21 million to property developer Barry Nesbitt; and the Palm Beach weekender of the late lawyer Phillip Esplin for about $21 million to Bill and Imelda Roche.

Figures show the last time there were so few top-end sales was in 2012 when the three top sales were the Palm Beach Kalua estate for $22 million, a $20 million estate sale in Mosman’s Beauty Point and Mosman’s Mandolong House for $18 million.

“In 2012 it was a completely different scenario at play,” said Mr Jacobs. “Australia’s market was saved from the worst of the impact from the global financial crisis in 2008, but the effect of it came later in 2012 when the rest of the world was already showing signs of having rebounded.”