May 2012
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Market 'Resetters': Chatswood & Fitzroy North
McGrath agents Peter Chauncy and Amanda Hunt are two happy folks this week. Their much-publicized sale of a fixer-upper Federation on a desirable Chatswood street attained a whopping $2.2m. As Sarah Whyte reported at SMH, the price was $800k above the reserve. Homes on park-adjacent Blakeley St are tightly held; aside from a sale at number 6 for $1.5m earlier this year. Aside from that,...
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Update: Well-Laid Out 'Meudon' Listing Now with...
Earlier this month, we highlighted a low-floor apartment in the iconic ‘Meudon’ building at 13 Onslow Street in posh Elizabeth Bay. At the time, we couldn’t get enough of the floorplan that reveals a good use of an otherwise challenging residential space. Unfortunately at the time, limited photos were available for Unit 2. Thankfully, Tony Dowling and Vicki Laing of Laing Real...
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Cool Website Alert! CanberraHouse.com →
While surfing around the interweb today, Radical Terrace stumbled upon CanberraHouse.com, a website dedicated to the iconic inter-war and post-war architecture found in the ACT. Whomever the author of the website is: major kudos on an excellent run-down on the various styles and their respective practicing architects in the region. You’ve been bookmarked and will likely be called upon for...
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40 Acres and a Mule: Dandenong-Adjacent Land...
Sandwiched between Dandenong and Patterson Lakes (Melbourne’s half-assed answer to Sylvania Waters where you can live on “Staten Island” - sign us up!) rests Bangholme, a suburb thats main claim to fame is serving as buffer between the two aforementioned suburbs. And despite Bangholme’s micro-sized resident count, you too can join the selective club. Emerging on the...
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Is This The Best-Priced Penthouse in Sydney?
The conversion of The Hampton building on Potts Point’s Bayswater Road has long been on our radar, mostly because the beautiful renderings of several years ago eventuated to a lackluster reality. So when a whopping 548sqm penthouse apartment in the Art Deco condo conversion came on the market, we were excited to see the interiors. More importantly? The penthouse is priced in the...
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Calling All ($5m+) Cult Leaders
A 10-bedroom spread reminiscent of the location of Osama bin Laden’s last stand is up for auction in the far northern suburb of Glenorie. The mansion is situated on a “mountaintop” and somehow magically “expands over 44 acres” (like, it gets bigger?) and includes a church (seriously), separate fibro dwelling (perfect hangout during the apocalypse!), and “sound...
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North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club Gets a Refresh
Finally. Durbach Block Jaggers does a nice job redeeming the current tragedy that is known as the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club.
Okay, further captions necessary: it looks good when it rains!
Other further caption: Old, overweight men enjoy the surf club too!
And the “cutting edge” journalism from SMH.
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Sydney Food Trucks Have Arrived!
Move aside Los Angeles, Portland, and NYC: Sydney now has food trucks. A press release issued by the City of Sydney reveals the approval of 10 food truck locations in the City of Sydney. Furthermore, the city released a mobile app for patrons to get the latest news about the whereabouts and details of the food trucks. How modern!
The locations where you can now purchase food from a truck:
...
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This Week in House Flips (or Distressed Sales?)
Two multi-million dollar Eastern Suburbs listings emerged on the market this week that led to some raised eyebrows here at Radical Terrace. Both abodes are the result of book-time (2007/2008) speculative apartment redevelopments. First up (pictured above and below) is a full-floor unit in the 7-unit serviced apartment conversion ‘The Grantham’, situated in a tiny cul-de-sac at the...
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Will Australia's Cashed-Up Pension Funds Alter the... →
Nichola Saminather at Bloomberg wrote an interesting piece on the increasingly large coffers of capital being held by Australia’s pension funds. Martin Lamb, the Sydney-based director for Asia-Pacific real estate at Russell Investments (Lamb is the Radical Terrace’s favourite source for macro-economic insight in the property market) sums it up “We are poised for the highest ever new...
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George Lucas Strikes Back
We don’t normally post about subjects outside of Australia, but this one is too good to pass up. NIMBYs everywhere, be warned! Ripped from the Daily What:
Star Wars creator George Lucas has been trying for years to convert a large parcel of land in Marin County, California into a 300,000 square foot movie studio, with amenities including a day care center, restaurants, a gym and a parking...
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Glenquarry 200ac Wants to Reset the Market
The Southern Highlands has long been the desired country getaway for (Eastern Suburbs-based) Sydneysiders. And, outside of isolated pockets around Sutton Forest, there is no more desirable stretch of Southern Highlands land than that fantastic stretch from eastern Mittagong to Robertson along Tourist, Range, and Kangaloon Roads. This “miracle (several) mile(s)” (see above map) has...
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Woollahra Mansion 'Orama' Sells Off-Market for...
Remember Mandolong House, one of the Radical Terrace’s favourites spreads in Mosman that sold for $18m earlier this year? Well, Margie Blok is reporting (and we’re hoping she’s not just jumping the gun on us again) that Jersey Road’s ‘Orama’ has sold to the Roberts-Thompson family that decamped from Mandolong House after they enlisted Smart Design Studios in a...
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Newcastle, Australia: World Capital of Tree Drama →
Just the usual tree-hating residents of Stockton doing anything to protect their sacred views.
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UPDATE: Vaucluse Waterfront [DOES NOT] go for $18m
Margie Blok at SMH apparently jumped the gun reporting the $18m sale of ‘Green Gables’ located on the coveted stretch of Coolong Road, just past Neilson Park, and a few doors down from the one-time Sydney price record holder 23-25 Coolong Rd, which sold for $45m (or $47m?) a few years back. 29 Coolong Road is a definite fixer-upper, but sits on an impressive chunk of land totalling...
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Tales from Turramurra: Ku-Ring-Gai Ave
Back to the Polo Belt, The Radical Terrace goes. This time, to the iconic and prestigious Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue. As our readers may now realize, this blog is most interested in the real estate evolution of a given suburb, street, or precinct and its associated sociological implications. And studying the rise (and the fall?) of the Upper North Shore is one of the finest examples of the shifting...
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Paddington's Elizabeth St Sell-Off
Three properties on Elizabeth St between Underwood and Paddington Streets are currently on the market. This stretch of Elizabeth St sits nicely in what has consistently been a top-performing pocket of Paddington. However, with the slump of Paddington’s Oxford Street and the exodus of upscale retailers from Elizabeth St between Oxford and Underwood Streets, does that make a residential...
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Sydney Architecture Walks →
Sydney Architecture Walks, part of the greater “Guiding Architects Network” has launched in Sydney. Offering several different tour options and beginning at $25, the tours take guests through some of the most prominent landmarks in the City. We like it. Definitely radical.
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Toorak's Tussle of the ($30m) Towers Continues:
The question that’s puzzling all the parents waiting to pick up their beloveds from Melbourne Grammar and St Caths’ is which Toorak mansion on Towers Road will crush the Melbourne property record so rudely stolen by an apartment block house in - wait for it - HAWTHORN*! Next door neighbours 1 Towers Road and 3 Towers Road in Toorak remain on the market, both hoping to break the $30m...
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Development Alert! Radical-Worthy and...
Nothing makes the Radical Terrace happier than a truly cool speculative development. Granted, none are perfect, but some come admirably close. Today, we investigate something cooking along the train line in the formerly gritty Melbourne suburb of Brunswick: The Commons.
The broker (Onder Ozmetin of Fitzroys) verbiage says it all: “The striking building is home to just 24 apartments,...
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Now We Must Address the $40m Point Piper Pile
Jumping on Stephen Nicholls’ Domain article (posted at 12.48am, Sydney time) and Jonathan Chancellor’s Title Tattle blip posted just hours before Nicholls’, the Radical Terrace realizes that any listing on the Point Piper harbourfront requires IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. LJ Hooker Double Bay agent Bill Malouf scored the listing several months ago when he quietly shopped the property...
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Tasteless Excess on Sydney's Urban Fringe Aimed...
The Hills are alive with cashed-up Chinese! Two gigantic, modern listings emerged this week in Dural and Glenhaven with potentially record-setting prices. Both listed through the bilingual (Chinese and English) House 18 agents Michael Zhu and Brian McMillan, these two homes share more than just agents. Both 38A Carters Road, Dural (pictured above) and 1 Old Glenhaven Rd, Glenhaven (first picture...
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Derelict Mansions with "Unbridled Potential"
As Monica Kovacic over at the House Hunter may agree, derelict mansions offer an imaginative window into the domestic lives of generations past. While many mansions past their prime are demolished, many more are preserved as apartment house conversions (Babworth Estate in Darling Point being a very good example) or as single-family refurbishments. Here are some notable NSW and Victorian homes on...
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WSJ: Australia's Rate Cut Signals a Shift
James Glynn, 1 May 2012
SYDNEY—Australia’s slowing economy got a shot in the arm Tuesday when the central bank cut a half-percentage point from official interest rates, signaling a shift in its focus away from fighting inflation and toward safeguarding growth amid an uncertain global outlook.
It was the first cut in a decade bigger than a quarter of a percentage point, except for emergency...
