Well, That Was Quick: ‘Laurel Park’ Flipping for $4.3m+

Just twelve months ago, Laurel Park in Burradoo’s famed (and fatigued) Golden Triangle sold for $3,525,000. The John Sulman-designed home was one of the original Southern Highlands estates to accommodate Sydney’s summering set when it was built in 1886-87. (Believe it or not, Sydney’s 19th century elite wanted to escape the heat of their city’s summer, not bask in it.) The home originally sat on 100 acres and was built for John Macintosh who sought a cooler refuge for his ailing daughter.

The current owners seem to have pulled a Simone Semmens and subdivided a portion of the property in April while renovating the interiors of Laurel Park to grab a maximum return. It was a strategic subdivision: siphoning off the land fronting the well-trafficked Moss Vale Road while maintaining the prestigious Osborne Road entrance for Laurel Park. The renovation was also strategically wise, albeit standard for a flip: refreshed and modernised kitchen, wallpaper galore, some nice staging furniture, and the best mudroom we’ve seen this side of the Hamptons. A $4.3m sale of the home, plus whatever proceeds they’ll score from an adjacent parcel of land will likely yield a healthy profit. Let’s just hope the home doesn’t face the same fate of many other Burradoo properties at present: languishing on the market for months…and years…

Michael Maloney of Richardson & Wrench Bowral has the listing: ‘Laurel Park’, 81 Osborne Road, Burradoo

The subdivision plans from April 2012.

Click below for more photos and a FLOOR PLAN!

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Radical Roundup: New & Notable This Week

NSW

• A 4-bedroom, two-storey, 530sqm Mcmahons Point penthouse listed with high-$6m expectations. Last sold for $6.5m (presumably off-the-plan) in Nov 2005, Martin Schiller of Savills will have to break that amount to present his clients from being price losers. The listing: 2/16 Bay View Street, Mcmahons Point.

• Another “cute” home, ‘Yorkfleet’, an 1886 on over 2 acres of well-established gardens in Burradoo’s blue-chip ‘Golden Triangle’, listed this week for $3.5m. The home sits on a battleaxe block of land down a long driveway from Osbourne Road in a pocket of the Southern Highlands considered the most desirable for smaller properties under a few acres; properties routinely trade above $3m; the record being the $5.6m sale of 93 Burradoo Rd back in 2005. Highlands Property has the listing: 87 Osborne Road.

• ‘Oybin’, an 1880 Victorian Italianate villa on Annandale’s Johnston Street designed by C.H.E. Blackmann is listed with $2.6m+ expectations through Jennifer Aaron. The home is owned by a Blackmann enthusiast, according to Margie Blok, who wrote an interesting write-up on the property earlier this week. The listing: 270 Johnston Street, Annandale

• A well-renovated Craftsman home in Newcastle’s bluechip suburb of Merewether listed earlier this week with a $3.5m asking price. Last time this home was on the market, it came with a $2.5m ask but sold for $200k more in July 2009. There have only been a handful of homes to sell above $3m in Merewether, most of which are clustered closer to the water on John Parade, Lloyd Street, or Scenic Drive. However, the featured home at 26 Rowan Crescent sits on high ground with northeast facing ocean views, is across the street from a popular park, and has a large 1,309sqm parcel of land. The Merewether record for a conventional home (not a development opportunity or block of flats) is the $3.6m Dec 2007 sale of 39 Scenic Drive, one of Merewether’s largest homes. David Phelan of Dalton Partners has the listing: 26 Rowan Crescent, Merewether.

• We always feel sorry for Palm Beach homes that remain listed during the winter time. If it couldn’t sell in the glory months, why don’t they just quietly remove the listing and wait for the temperatures and interest to climb in the spring? Enter 19 Thyra St. The 4-bedroom, 1-bath waterfront has taken a novel photographic approach to advertising the Palm Beach lifestyle: these creepy-ass bugs. What’s going on? For $1.9m+, we’d expect Noel Nicholson and Amethyst McKee of LJ Hooker Palm Beach to offer photos a bit less cringe-worthy. 19 Thyra Street, Palm Beach

VIC

• A derelict end-terrace on the ever-desirable Beaconsfield Parade in Albert Park listed this week with an indicative asking price of $2.5m+. The home last sold in Apr 2009 for $2.0m and, considering it still looks like a health hazard, I’d venture to say the current owner is treating the property as a land bank. Gerald Betts and Simon Jones of RT Edgar Albert Park have the listing: 113 Beaconsfield Parade, Albert Park

• A uniquely situated mid-century home on the bluff above Jacksons Creek in Gisborne listed this week for $2m. The home sits on an especially large parcel of land in a desirable precinct on the far outskirts of Melbourne. Lindsay Hill and Annette Travers of Bennison Mackinnon have the listing: 171 Panorama Drive, Gisborne

SA

• Here’s an exceptionally odd listing. For $1.4m, you can purchase 140 hectares of land in the southern suburbs of Adelaide in Hallett Cove. The land is on 5 titles and includes “beautiful landscapes, wildlife, and scattered with ruins from the Worthing mine site of the 1850s.” Field River Valley is listed through Brett McCammon of Phil McMahon Real Estate has the listing. Something tells me this property will be converted to use as a paintball skirmish site.