World-class price tags on Wolseley Road

Wolseley Road, Point Piper, ranks as the world’s 10th priciest residential street, says the latest Dow Jones Financial News index.

Europe property prices are in turmoil, and the priciest street was in Hong Kong. Australia’s representative held its ground, and might edge higher after the recent $52 million sale of Villa Veneto.

The price reflects about $38,000 a square metre, higher than the $US28,000 ($30,000) a square metre given in the index for Wolseley Road.

Australia’s robust economy and the strength of the local currency helped Point Piper hold its spot on the list, according to Dow Jones.

Severn Road on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong ranks as the most expensive residential street in the world, according to the third annual survey.

It costs $US70,000 for one square metre of real estate. Severn Road jumped from eighth place to overtake last year’s No. 1, Avenue Princesse Grace in Monte Carlo.

About 15 per cent was wiped off the value of the world’s 10 most expensive streets in the past year. The worst fall was on Avenue Princesse Grace, from $US120,000 a square metre to $US65,000.

The next biggest decline was Chemin de Saint-Hospice in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the south of France, where values tumbled from $US100,000 a square metre to $US55,000. The only places where prices rose were Severn Road and Moscow’s Ostozhenka.

Kensington Palace Gardens in London and Fifth Avenue, New York, ranked equal second at about $US65,000 a square metre, according to the list compiled by agents Knight Frank, Savills and Chesterton Humberts along with local independents.

It appears it took a Double Bay dentist, David Penn, and his wife, Linda Mueller, to consolidate Point Piper’s spot in the prestige stakes.

After their bullish $52 million purchase last month they will have the Lowys, of Westfield fame, as their neighbours.

Villa Veneto, the home of Andrew and Andrea Banks, had been on and off the market for three years. The Penns made their initial inspection two years ago.

Mr Penn heads clinical and technical research at Southern Cross Dental Labatories, which he founded in 1983. The Penns sold their Michael Suttor-designed home at Bellevue Hill for about $23 million to Tom and Lilly Haikin, owners of the Australian franchise of the Max Brenner chocolate shop, which recorded sales last year exceeding $20 million.

Mr Haikin, a former dental technician, has a $2 million house in Maroubra.

The listing agent of both properties, Bill Malouf of LJ Hooker Double Bay, will not confirm any sale details. But the reputed $52 million price trumps the $45 million – $11,250 a square metre – paid in 2008 by the expatriate foreign exchange dealer Ivan Ritossa for the Vaucluse residence, Coolong, currently rented to Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch.

After the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, which sent sharemarkets into a panic, the highest Sydney sale has been $26.75 million in Vaucluse, at $16,700 a square metre.

In Perth, a 7500 square metre residential compound with three houses on the Swan River at Mosman Park fetched a record $57.5 million in 2009. But it is hardly comparable, at $7666 a square metre and three houses.

The next Wolseley Road test will be the sale of property developer Nati Stoliar’s non-waterfront penthouse through Mr Malouf. It comprises 322 square metres on one floor, and a 280 square metre roof-level terrace with jacuzzi and barbecue.

Mr Stoliar, who once called as home both the record-setting Boomerang in Elizabeth Bay and Villa del Mare in Point Piper, is seeking more than $9 million.

It is in Pacific Point, in which was set a Sydney record off-the-plan apartment price of $3.8 million in 1988. But the apartment was sold again for $2.51 million in 1993, which indicates that prices do not only ever rise on the street paved in gold. Phil Green, of Babcock & Brown, then made money on it by selling it for $3.66 million in 2000.

The ground floor apartment in Pacific Point – which has 277 square metres of internal space, plus terraces – remains unsold after being scheduled for June auction with $5 million hopes through the McGrath agent Alan Waitsman.

It was listed by the Schwartz family executor after the death in 2000 of the long-time BRW Rich List dentist Bela Schwartz, who started investing in property after immigrating from Hungary in 1940, and his widow, Eve, who died in 2005.

The highest sale price at the weekend was $2.54 million for a terrace in Darlinghurst. Two pricier listings, at Balmain and Wollstonecraft, failed to find buyers.

The overall clearance rate from 243 listings was 57 per cent, 10 per cent weaker than the 67 per cent August average, according to Australian Property Monitors.