Capital city prestige markets went backwards in 2011: Title Tattle

2011 was the year that the capital city prestige residential prices went backwards. No dramatic forced sales yet, just plenty of luxury listings with unrealistic prices that languish unsold.

There were some negative directional price indicators emerging – although that said, there's still the occasional sales that suggests not everyone's caught in the downturning market.

But there have not been the stellar prices.

And a few who've been around long enough sense it is reminiscent of those final months of the late 1980s – sales such as Rona's bullish $9.6 million snuck through by the late Double Bay sales doyen Ron Pillinger – which within months in 1990 had turned decidedly bearish for a long time.

Some savvy 2012 buyers are waiting in the wings, understandably hesitant in part because of the international economic headwinds, but also for want of price comparables. Realists expects top-end prices will pretty much remain clipped until the financial services industry returns to its heyday, such is the interconnectivity between share market excess and a rampant prestige property market.

In the meantime, top-end prices have come back 30% from peak levels.

Certainly in Sydney you know it’s an off year when a non-waterfront house (pictured above) takes the prize as the year's top sale at just $21.5 million.

Although of course the actual highest Sydney spender was the entreprenuer Brett Blundy, who bought two adjoining Vaucluse properties, including one on Kutti Beach, for a $25.7 million total.

But all credit to estate agent Alison Coopes who secured the $21.5 million deal when Hong Kong buyers bought on the Vaucluse hillside from John and Jo McNiven.

Some things remain constant, as it comes with a Howard Tanner-designed residence – he's forever getting the priciest design commissions and secured 2010's top sale. This year's top sale was built after the 1,981-square-metre block cost $3,925,000 in 1996.

Until we know officially what price Albert Bertini got in Balmoral - its reputed $18.5 million sale, reflected a let-off lightly 17% price drop, the reward for living next door to billioniare buyers - the second-highest known Sydney sale was $18.5 million on the Point Piper harbourfront. The Wolseley Road residence sold through Christie's International agent Ken Jacobs and LJ Hooker Double Bay's Bill Malouf to Gelatissimo vendors. The five-bedroom Philip Thalis-designed Wolseley Road house on 1,100 square metres had been listed with another agent in distant November 2008 with $32.4 million plus expectations. So make that 40% off, and a serious meltdown although it was only one agent's folly of a record-setting price expectation.

Nothing happened saleswise in Melbourne's Toorak during 2011 – with two Towers Road listings going unsold (1 Towers Road pictured above)  – which has therefore left the $26 million Portsea record intact.

So Perth took 2012 honours with the $39 million sale of the former Dalkeith mansion built for the 1980s entrepreneur Alan Bond. The seven-bedroom riverfront mansion set across six titles totalling 6,417 square metres (pictured above) sold through Mack Hall, of Mack Hall Real Estate.

The Swan River mansion was bought by the mining entrepreneur Steve Wyatt and his wife, Sue and was sold by businessman Barry Patterson, who was Sonic Healthcare chairman from 1999 to 2010. The gold mining magnate Ross Atkins had bought the property in 1993 from the Bond family trust company, Armoy Pty Ltd, for $7.3 million, selling it six years later to Patterson after extensive renovation for $9.5 million, which was to stand as Perth’s record for seven years until 2006.

Of course Wyatt’s business associate Chris Ellison set the WA real estate record when he paid $57.5 million for iron ore heiress Angela Bennett's riverfront property in Mosman Park in 2009. The 7,567-square-metre estate sold through Willie Porteous of William Porteous Properties International.

Wyatt and Ellison set up Crushing Services International Pty Ltd, which operated ore-crushing plants for mining companies.

Estate agents ought to set up Crushing Expectations Locally Pty Ltd, as there aren't going to be many sales next year unless the discretionary vendors are told the truth about the new pricing levels.

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And in the meantime the good old listings hang around, none more so than Altona (pictured above), on the harbour's edge at Point Piper. Deke and Eve Miskin are in residence, still seeking somewhere upwards of $50 million, perhaps rueing they never took the $55 million offer in 2007 by the shopping centre scion David Lowy and his wife, Margo.

Oh how the tide has turned as at the time the 2007 prestige market was also paralysed – not for want of big-pocketed buyers, but by sellers fearful of selling too cheaply as no high end-sales had exceeded Altona's $28 million record set five years earlier in 2002.

Of course there were very soon some benchmark sales with the horse breeder Warwick Miller selling Routala, Point Piper to the Fell family, which briefly held the Australian record at $28.7 million in 2007 through Bill Malouf from LJ Hooker Double Bay in conjunction with James McCowan and Greg Carr from Richardson & Wrench Double Bay.

Then Coolong, the stately Vaucluse harbourfront house was sold by Allco founder David Coe to Ivan Ritossa, global head of foreign exchange at Barclays Capital, in 2008, for $45 million through Hamish Robertson from McGrath in conjunction with the veteran agent Bill Bridges.

In 2009 Perth chimed in when Angela Bennett sold at $57.5 million but that was really a compound and not the typical single dwelling.

Back in Sydney in 2010, Villa Veneto (pictured above and below), the grand Italianate villa in Point Piper with a 21-person lift, sold for $52 million after being listed with expectations of $60 million.

The luxury Villa Veneto was finished in 2004 after two years building to a design by Michael Suttor. The five-level house cost Andrew and Andrea Banks a reputed $15 million, having consolidation of the 1,424-square-metre double block for $14 million in 2001.

Its August 2010 sale – reported by me within seven days – is mired in intrigue given the official viewable paperwork dating the deal as December 2010 suggests just a $44 million transfer. But those in the know stick with the $52 million sale tag, presuming the deal was either front- or back-ended by an $8 million amount. And those who reckon it’s $44 million probably have ulterior motives.

Anyway Altona's next sale will be the sixth in my memory, which dates back to Christmas 1986, when Peggy Moore was in two minds about shutting up her exclusive antipodean pensione for international celebrities. Moore felt guilty about selling Altona, her century-old Point Piper waterfront mansion, shutting the door on entertainers Max Bygraves and Ronnie Corbett, singers Dame Vera Lynn and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, even the ice-skating pair Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.

It was $180 a night for serviced apartment in the two-storey Georgian mansion – complete with jetty, pool, cabana and views of Shark Island and the Harbour Bridge, and given it was pre-paparazzi the only barking came from her two dogs, Sydney-silky Eliza Jane and pekingese Beau.

Altona was joined on this year's prestige listings by an overly ambitious waterfront asking price at Darling Point (pictured above and below). It’s Sir William Tyree's 1,800-square-metre Lindsay Avenue property at the tip of Darling Point and next door to Glanworth, owned by the media tycoon Kerry Stokes.

Sir William bought it in 1967 for $170,000 from the estate of Margaret Wirth of the Wirth Circus family.

Maybe 18 months ago it was doable, but now it would take an estate agent's best conjuring expertise to secure the suggested $50 million-plus hopes. And the $40 million estimate suggested by Title Tattle might also be over the odds.

Probably all depends on Kerry Stokes's patience, acquisitorial generosity and someone else who wants to make a play for their own piece of the harbour.