The luxury real estate deals that made 2022

PRESTIGE and luxury residential sales had a spectacular finish in 2022 with Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar’s record breaking $130 million purchase of a Point Piper mansion known as Uig Lodge.

The late December transaction marked the highest ever sale price for a house in Australia, surpassing the previous record made by Farquhar’s fellow Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, who spent $100 million on an estate in 2018.

The four-bedroom Point Piper home in Sydney was sold privately by Steven and Carol Moss, who held the property since late 1996, when they purchased it $9.2 million, a non-waterfront record at the time.

Built in the style of a Scottish baronial castle in 1901, Uig Lodge sits on a 3,300sqm parcel on the highest point of Point Piper.

The record-breaker follows the $62 million February sale of the Vaucluse mansion, known as Ganeden, to an undisclosed party from China.

The mansion built on a site comprising three houses between Wentworth and Vaucluse Road, with corporate lawyer John Landerer and his wife Michelle paying $5.2 million for first site in 1998.

Also in Vaucluse, fashion designer Nicky Zimmermann picked up a waterfront mansion that was listed with expectations of $60 million, in what was then the third-biggest Sydney house sale of 2022.

Back in Point Piper, a vacant 740sqm block on Wolseley Road, associated with murderer Ron Medich, sold for $27 million.

Tech investors Alexandra and Gabriel Jakob purchased the property from vendor Wu Li, son of the Chinese billionaire Li Guoqiang.

Influencer and celebrity hotspot Byron Bay also saw its most expensive house sale ever, after a luxe three-bedroom hinterland home traded for $26 million back in October.

In Victoria, 2022’s most expensive purchase was claimed by cryptocurrency casino founder, 27-year-old Ed Craven.

The Toorak home at 29-31 St Georges Road was sold for $80,000,088, having sat vacant for more than 30 years, when it last changed hands in 1991 for $5 million.

Marcus Chiminello from Marshall White handled the sale on behalf of David Yu, while buyer’s agent Kim Easterbrook represented Craven.

The sale smashed the state’s previous record of $52.5 million, which was set in 2018 by the sale of Stonnington mansion at 336 Glenferrie Road in Malvern.

Victoria second-ever most expensive purchase also snuck in to 2022, with the $75 million sale of the 10-bedroom Blair House mansion in Toorak to MessageMedia co-founder Grant Rule.

This came as blue-ribbon suburb of Toorak saw around  $75 million worth of luxury homes change hands in a late-year flurry of activity.

While ASX-listed co-working spaces operator’s CEO Dan Baxter’s abandoned mansion project in the suburb sold for $12.25 million, well below the initial asking price of $15 million and below the $14.75 million Baxter paid for the property in 2018.

 

With Melbourne’s bayside seeing contender in the sale of 39 Seacombe Grove, a waterfront residence which set a new price record for the exclusive Brighton after selling within the $30 million to $33 million price range.

Brighton also saw a new apartment record price set this year, after a four-bedroom off-the-plan penthouse in Kervale’s ESSENCE project sold for $10.2 million.

While in Western Australia, mining billionaire Andrew and Nicola Forrest purchased the historic 1893-built Le Fanu mansion in Perth’s beachside suburb of Cottesloe, which had undergone a $12 million renovation, believed to be the most expensive ever in WA.

Breaking Queensland’s off-the-plan sales record, a two-level penthouse at Spyre Group’s Glasshouse residential development in Burleigh Heads sold for $20 million back in April.

While prices for luxury homes and mansions around the globe are set to rise by about 2% in 2023, this marks a downgrade from previous forecasts as the market cools.

With Melbourne alone tipped to see a city-wide 1% fall in the values of luxury homes in 2023, according to Knight Frank.