Knox grazier family score $9.2m Southern Highlands trophy sale

The Southern Highlands trophy market has proven it remains immune to Sydney’s market doldrums by clocking up another trophy sale, this time for the Knox family’s property, Scotsburn, for more than $9.2 million.

Sources say the buyer is the Lai family, who are behind property giant Zone Q Investments, the Australian arm of China’s JiaHe JianAn Group.

The sale result comes less than two years after the same property set a record for the Avoca township at $8.1 million when it was bought by Josie Knox, wife of Guyra grazier and hotelier Jim Knox.

Despite few material improvements during their brief ownership, and having never moved into the property, it was returned to the market late last year with $8.9 million hopes with Michael Maloney, of Richardson & Wrench Bowral.

Maloney declined to reveal the exact sale result or name the buyer other than to say it exchanged a few weeks ago but was only finalised once Foreign Investment Review Board approval was granted.

It was sold with Drew Lindsay Real Estate’s Drew Lindsay, and local sources put the result at close to $9.2 million.

The 41-hectare property includes a grand five-bedroom homestead with porte cochere entry, billiard room, study, gymnasium, sauna, a 20-metre heated indoor pool and championship tennis court.

The Avoca record is not the only one set recently by the Knox family. Jim Knox smashed Mollymook records in February when he sold his 1969-built Allen Jack + Cottier-designed beachfront property Blackbutt for $4.45 million.

The Knox family are graziers from Guyra, who added to their Griffith hotel holdings in April when they bought one of the Riverina district’s top gaming pubs, the Area Hotel, for about $8 million, having off-loaded their New England property Tenterden Station last October for $16.5 million.

Zone Q  Investments – owned by Wenzhong Lai and Zongxing Lai – has been a major player in the commercial and residential market since it made its debut in Australia in 2013 with its Pinnacle South Perth apartment tower.

It has more than $650 million in real estate projects across the country and in New Zealand, including the $155 million residential project Aqualuna in Milsons Point.

The Southern Highlands luxury weekender market has scored a run of top sales in the past six months, most notably the $8.75 million paid for the Robertson property of developer John Boyd, Bowral’s Bellagio estate for $8.2 million and former Liberal leader John Hewson’s historic Invergowrie for $6 million after a decade on the market.

Last September fashion designer Collette Dinnigan sold her Avoca property Springfield Farm for $7.25 million, 18 months after she bought it for $4.5 million.

The Southern Highlands record has stood at $15 million since 2007 when the late Reg Grundy bought 200-hectare Sutton Forest property Comfort Hill.