Heather Ridout – now on the Reserve Bank of Mosman – has ridden out recessionary downturns: Title Tattle

Economist Heather Ridout – who will soon sit on the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia – knows what it’s like to get caught long on property during a recession.

It was back in Australia's distant last recession in the early 1990s. Nothing too serious, but Title Tattle recalls it was boomtime 1988 when she and her solicitor husband, Peter, outlaid $210,000 for a Pearl Beach weekender on the NSW Central Coast, with the mortgage stamped at $220,000.

That was in addition to their Mosman home, which had cost $280,000 in 1983, and a good recessionary acquisition. However the Pearl Beach cottage was offloaded within four years for $202,500 in 1992. Not a huge loss, but certainly some fiscal inconvenience.

Of course she's very comfortable these days – and her Mosman hillside house must be worth $6 million plus. We could almost call it the Reserve Bank of Mosman now, as Ridout's auspicious appointment takes the prestigious harbourfront suburb's representation on the Reserve Bank board to two – along with the economist John Edwards, who owns there.

Ridout's appointment no doubt buoyed the besieged Balmoral bunch, whose tightened financial services industry bonuses are restricting their previous regular property upgrades on the Middle Harbour slopes. It means the plight of the miserable Mosman mortgage holders and the remaining Military Road retailers will feel their voice will be heard at the board's deliberations.

Of course the current governor Glenn Stevens hails from Sylvania Waters in the Sutherland Shire – they have canals not true harbour waterfront – having taken the reins from Mosmanite Ian Macfarlane in September 2006.

The Ridouts have periodically played the Mosman merry-go-round upgrading game, but not for 17 years. They've been in the same house since paying $1,025,000 in early 1994, so they bounced back pretty quickly after the recession we had to have. At the time they were upgrading from their $875,000 Prince Albert Street house, which had gone up a delightful 12% annually over the decade of their ownership.

There's still a mortgage dating back to the 1994 purchase, and it was just $400,000 at the time so plenty of equity then and presumably now. It’s impossible to say what amount the couple still owes on it, if anything.

Of course some 34% of Mosmanites don’t have any borrowings on their home, according to the last Census. That's slightly higher outright ownership rate than the 30% across Sydney in 2006 who have no immediate care for what the Reserve Bank does on the first Tuesday of the month unless they have plenty of cash in the bank. We'll get an update in the 2011 census figures next year.

Recently back from Bahrain where he was briefly advising before his July 31 RBA appointment, Edwards, an economic adviser to former treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating before becoming chief economist for Australia and New Zealand for HSBC Bank for 10 years, is also an adjunct professor at the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at Curtin University.

He and his wife, Deborah Hope, who was Annita Keating's private secretary, also own property in Paddington.

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The Townsville mansion (pictured above) of the founders of failed north Queensland company Storm Financial, Julie and Emmanuel Cassimatis, has been sold for an undisclosed amount. It was passed in at recent auction at $1.35 million. The eight-bedroom home had failed to sell at the family’s asking price of $3.8 million ever since first being listed in 2006. The 900-square-metre property, which sits on an 1,854-square-metre block, features a $75,000 Waterford crystal chandelier, lifts, two swimming pools, four bathrooms and has views over Magnetic Island, Cleveland Bay and the Townsville CBD.

Its selling agent Garry Byrnes from Ferry Property Townsville has had the Melton Terrace listing on and off the market since 2009. It’s been bought by a local businessman.

The Cassimatis couple are facing civil proceedings in the Federal Court by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Their assets have not been frozen, but the sale highlights the demise of the couple, who oversaw the loss of $3 billion of investors’ money in 2009.They have since sold their private jet and a similar property in Brisbane, which went for $2 million this year.

The Tamarama residence of Perth-bound lawyer Amanda Kailis, of the MG Kailis pearling group, and her former husband, George Frazis, the Auckland-based Westpac New Zealand chief executitive, secured $6.45 million last weekend. The seven-bedroom house sold through Simon Exleton from McGrath Estate Agents. It was marketed as the most substantial Tamarama offering since 2008, but seemingly fell narrowly short of hype given there was a $6.8 million sale earlier this year. The four-level architecturally designed house was completed four years ago after a knockback or two at Waverley Council. With ocean and beach views, the Pacific Avenue house came with an 18-metre swimming pool in its north-facing garden.

Lady (Janette) Murray, the widow of Sir Brian Murray, a former governor of Victoria and an admiral in the Royal Australian Navy, wants $865,000 for her Darling Point apartment through Alexander Phillips of GoodyerDonnelley, in conjunction with agent Maureen Brett.

It had been listed for weekend auction with more than $800,000 expected for the two-bedroom Mitchell Road apartment, but did not sell. Lady Murray decided to sell the apartment because she lives mostly at her country residence in Molong or in the Loire Valley, France. It last traded at $740,000 in 2006.

Anuket at Mosman Park (pictured above) in Perth has been listed for sale in a partially gutted state. It last sold in 2008 when property developer Luke Saraceni bought it from mining speculator David Rigoll, the former early-1990s Colonial Resources managing director, through agent William Porteous for $16 million. It had previously also traded at $16 million in 2007 when offloaded by Firepower director Tim Johnston, who had bought it from property developer Warren Anderson. The house was built for the Burswood Casino developer Dallas Dempster to a design by architect Louise St John Kennedy. Its current listing agent, William Porteous from William Porteous Properties International, is marketing it as "one of Perth's most iconic properties". Set on a 1,425-square-metre block, it comes with five bedrooms, six bathrooms and four living areas. The Chidley Way property comes with a huge lap pool overlooking the Swan River. It's not a rushed marketing campaign, as expressions of interest don't fall due until March 2012.

Channel 7 Sunrise sports presenter Mark Beretta has sold his Mosman house (pictured above) at $1.9 million. Beretta and his wife, Rachel have, been at the property since 2005 when they paid $1.47 million. It sold through Piers van Hamburg at McGrath Estate Agents. It’s a charming single-storey house on a 610-square-metre block. The talk is they have spent about $2.8 million quite close by.

The arts guru merchant banker Simon Mordant is tipped as the $10 million plus buyer of the garden apartment (pictured above)  in the recently completed Buckhurst block in Point Piper. The ELK development group secured $68 million in sales of the six harbourfront Buckhurst Avenue apartments. Simon and Catriona Mordant have been living in Darling Point for the past 24 years, with almost a decade in a two-storey hillside triplex penthouse developed by Ron Powell to a design by Peddle Thorp and Walker. It cost $5.25 million in 2002. Title Tattle recalls both floors of the 245-square-metre penthouse, with 95 square metres of terraces, were accessible by lift, with a sweeping staircase handcrafted from American oak also connecting the two levels.

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Bolivia Station (pictured above), the historic rural property at Tenterfield in the New England district of northern NSW, has sold following tenders closing when $3 million plus was being sought by Patricia McAlary. She's the widow of the late Sydney barrister Frank McAlary, QC, the "dancing man" caught on film while twirling his hat in the air down a Sydney street on VP Day in 1945 at the end of World War II. First taken up in 1840, Bolivia Station has been owned by the McAlary family for almost 40 years. It is offered with about 500 station-bred cows and about 240 heifers. More than 30 parties inspected the 2,946-hectare property, widely regarded as one of the best in the Northern Tablelands district. Bolivia Station includes a 243-megalitre unregulated irrigation licence, two sets of cattle yards and an original homestead in need of repair. It was listed through Ray White Rural Tenterfield agent Bruce Birch, in conjunction with Jim Ritchie of Landmark Harcourts Glen Innes who expected the cattle might add another $1 million to the price.

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An architecturally significant Rose Bay duplex apartment (pictured above) has been sold for about $5 million. It’s atop the landmark 1961 building at the corner of New South Head and Beresford roads. The-700-square-metre penthouse of Peter Kotzias and wife Kathryn has been sold through McGrath agents Paul Ephron and Steven Chen. The apartment occupies the two top floors of a building designed by Ken Willoughby for the Auswild car dealer family. Newly updated by Weir Phillips Architects with interiors by Pyke Designs, the four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment has 370 square metres internal space plus a 328-square-metre terrace opposite the harbour. At street level it comes with a private lobby with a lift connected directly to both levels of the penthouse. It last sold at $3.63 million in 2007.

Title Tattle aims to tell you as soon as we know – often before it happens – and we keep hearing whispers that one of the Lewis Land scions has bought at Palm Beach in Sydney's northern beaches.

And don't say that Title Tattle told you, but the sale of the penthouse of The Residence has become akin to pulling a rabbit out of a hat. There was an initial premature Australian Financial Reveiw September sale report suggested a very bullish $25 million, then this week's updated sales advisory had it at $20 million plus. But intriguingly Title Tattle has periodically heard suggestions that no official exchange has actually occurred.

But if the larger of the two penthouses in The Residence on College Street, Sydney has been sold, Title Tattle would envisage the sale price as more likely to be somewhere around $18 million. That would still rank as a Sydney penthouse record – bettering the Moran family's $16.8 million Bennelong purchase in 2008.

The soon-to-be-complete 810-square-metre two-level penthouse – known as apartment 88 at 18 College Street – could possibly soon be full of the art that one would view at the White Rabbit Gallery, the Neilson family's significant collection of contemporary Chinese art.

There's denials, although some worksite wags have suggested Judith Neilson could be placing her serene Alice in Wonderland world-style art pieces around the apartment and pool now that's its intended Neil Bradford display suite decor is not getting installed in the main penthouse.

Last year The Australian described the founder of the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney's Chippendale as Australia's second-richest woman courtesy of her stake in South African-born financier husband Kerr's billion-dollar company Platinum Asset Management.
Perhaps the confusing speculation stems from the suggestions the mooted deal was done direct between the buyer and AMP Capital Investors, with with Galileo Group and Cbus Property is the joint partner of the $350 million CBD fringe residential conversion. CBRE agent Ben Stewart has been the lead selling agent on the project of late, but the mid-week AFR story strangely failed to make any mention of the lucky selling agent of apartment 88.
There were initial $25 million expectations when the penthouse was marketed to offshore Chinese buyers hoping they'd pay a premium for the lucky number. But it seems that's didnt happen.

The Hyde Park precinct, on the green fringe of the central business district, now ranks among Sydney's priciest addresses.

The 24-level Scott Carver designed building – the gutted former NSW Police headquarters – has 87 five-star apartments with views across Hyde Park, the Opera House, St Mary’s Cathedral and Sydney Harbour. The facilities include a gymnasium, all-weather lap pool, sauna, spa and steam room, a residents’ lounge with a fully equipped kitchen and barbecue area and a 24-hour concierge service.The development also features a lockable, humidity-controlled wine room that can store a 100-bottle wine cellar for each resident.

The $350 million CBD tower is being developed by Parmada in a venture with AMP Capital Investors, Galileo Group and Cbus Property.