Little-known property investor quietly secures $32m housing parcel in Vaucluse

Investor Ying Yu has added to her already hefty property portfolio, buying an $8 million house in Vaucluse on the quiet to create a family compound on a prime hillside holding with gun-barrel Harbour Bridge views at a total cost of more than $32 million.

Yu, 39, has been on an impressive property spree in recent years, most notably in September 2019 when she purchased a nine-storey building in North Sydney, formerly known as George Patterson House, for $115 million – well above the building’s $90 million guide at the time.

A month later, she took possession of a Mosman trophy home for $20 million from Wilson Xue, the self-described “shoe king” of China,  who is a former chairman of Pilot Energy and an honorary advisor to the Beijing lobby group Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China.

While Yu’s registered home remains the Mosman residence. A year ago, she purchased a Vaucluse mansion with a tennis court and swimming pool for $17.5 million, adding the house next door for $7 million.

Yu’s $32.55 million parcel of three houses on New South Head Road and her Mosman property were all purchased without the need for any finance.

Yu’s latest purchase for $8 million is almost double the $4.5 million the house last traded for in 2009 and takes her Vaucluse parcel to more than 2200 square metres.

Property consolidations are nothing new in Vaucluse. Down the road from Yu’s is the 2600-square-metre consolidation of two houses purchased for a total of $32 million in 2018 – for which Luigi Rosselli-designed residences are now approved – was returned to the market in April for $45 million.