Soaring construction costs amid a challenging economic climate have not deterred some home buyers from renovator’s delights that cost up to $130 million in 2024.
Crumbling walls, uneven floors, graffiti and overgrown backyards are hard enough for passionate renovators, let alone when faced with rising material costs and labour shortages.
Despite soaring construction costs, the appeal of the fixer-upper did not lose its shine in 2024.Credit: Peter Rae
The cost of building a home in NSW surged 30.2 per cent in four years after completion times were delayed during the pandemic.
Still, there were plenty of derelict and untouched properties in need of work that found buyers this year.
A mystery buyer paid about $130 million to tech billionaire Scott Farquhar for Point Piper’s rundown Elaine mansion, even though parts of the house are a shell of the original home after lead and asbestos were removed. Farquhar’s office previously announced a planned partial knockdown and contemporary rebuild but plans were never lodged with council.
A stand-out result was Point Piper’s Rockleigh mansion that sold for between $80 million and $85 million in an off-market deal.
Cashing in is medical specialist Philippa Harvey-Sutton who inherited the property from her mother Val Rundle in 2016. The family owned it for 46 years, purchasing it for $325,000 in 1978.
Property magnate Steve Grant emerged as the $35.5 million cash buyer of a pink house on the Double Bay waterfront and has already lodged plans for a multimillion-dollar knock-down rebuild.
Rockleigh at Point Piper sold for about $84 million.Credit: James Brickwood
The three-level residence is expected to be a new Sydney home for Grant and his wife Eliza when not at their farm on the Southern Highlands. It’s the suburb’s second-highest sale with $38 million paid in 2015 for the waterfront home of former Multiplex chief Andrew Roberts and his wife Andrea.
Sources said at the time it sold by Alison Coopes, of Agency by Alison Coopes.
Grant lodged plans in March for $5.8 million worth of “alterations and additions” and a partial demolition. Designed by Tanner Kibble Denton Architects, the three-storey residence would feature four bedrooms, a central courtyard and harbourside pool.
The Double Bay house owned by the Ireland family since 1978 sold for $35.5 million.
Also in the east, a two-bedroom house sold for $10,215,000 at auction to a local couple who planned to live in it but had also eyed it for its redevelopment potential.
The Rose Bay property was the home of Qantas’ former top frequent flyer, the late Mel Gottlieb, who died last year, aged 84. Gottlieb bought the home for $430,000 in 1984.
Gottlieb had flown around the world more than 100 times by the end of last century, and had clocked up some seven million points by 2008, earlier earning his Frequent Flyer No.1 card.
Elsewhere, in a suburb known for its Victorian Italianate and Federation mansions, an eyesore with crumbling concrete slabs and graffiti still came with a multimillion-dollar price tag.
The Morella mansion in Mosman sold in September after a $10 million campaign.Credit: Domain
Morella mansion in Mosman sat empty for about 50 years, save for squatters and vandals, and sold in September.
Atlas Lower North Shore’s Bo Zhang was “guiding $10 million”. It last sold for $6.6 million in 2016, records show.
Deemed “dangerous” by Zhang, the property has gained notoriety online, with covert tours captured on a channel named Abandoned Oz on YouTube.
The $8 million blueprint, approved by Mosman Council, includes a new landmark home, pool and landscaping.
In Strathfield, a rundown five-bedder sold for $7.55 million at a competitive auction, $2 million above the reserve.
All bidders were looking to rebuild their dream home on the 809-square-metre block, and were drawn to its location on Strathfield’s ‘Golden Mile’, which is surrounded by the best schools in the area.
“The house is dilapidated. I can’t even put a tenant in there if I want to,” Belle Property Strathfield selling agent Michael Ke Ma said at the time.
“It’s obviously the best and most prestigious pocket of Strathfield … if you have money in Strathfield this is where you want to be.”
On the other side of town, a buyer was willing to fork over $3 million at auction for a dilapidated Paddington terrace with horse stables that was in the same family for three generations.
The three-bedder is unlivable with significant rust, peeling walls and uneven floors.
“Most of the feedback we had from people is that they thought it was worth low twos [millions],” McGrath Paddington’s Georgia Cleary said.
Cleary said owner-occupier buyers were often willing to pay a premium for original properties because many prefer to renovate in their own way.
The buyers of a rundown three-bedder in Dulwich Hill saw its potential and were keen to cash in, undergoing a swift property flip.
Purchased for $1.6 million in March, listing photos revealed uneven floors, cracked tiles and peeling walls – which are now no longer.
They’ve been replaced by polished concrete floors, gold tapware, leadlight windows and a sun-soaked alfresco dining space.
The owners sold the property in November for $2.15 million.