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, Blakeley St homes haven’t sold since 2008 when numbers 21 and 26 went for $1.172m and $1.315m respectively. So is it really re-setting the market? Time will tell. According to Whyte, the buyer was an “expatriate from Singapore” who may have deemed the home to possess qualities worthy of such a high price. Chatswood, and its neighbouring suburbs, have experienced a growth of upper middle class Chinese expatriates in the last 10-20 years and perhaps this pocket of the suburb is eager to assert itself as a prestige pocket due to its parkside location and easy walk to the hub of Chatswood.
Another over-reported home sale took place on Fitzroy North’s regal Alfred Crescent. 39 Alfred Crescent, otherwise known as ‘Walkley’, sold for $4.2m through Nelson Alexander agency (who have another Fitzroy North trophy property on the market). The Age deemed the sale nothing short of apocalyptic with Fitzroy North now getting “hefty sums commanded in the private school belt of the leafy eastern suburbs.” However, our favourite part of the article were the commentary from the surprisingly erudite Kay & Burton agent Gowan Stubbings. He noted that 1) buyers are not “suburb-specific” they way they once were (True. Thank you, Gen X & Y.) and 2) buyers that would normally have been attracted to Richmond are being lured to the inner northern suburbs. Interesting.
But is it a market resetter? Several other homes in the Edinburgh Gardens precinct of garnered prices in the low-$3mils, so $4.2m is certainly high (especially since the home is not above-and-beyond special or renovated). The Radical Terrace is eager to track property prices in Chatswood and Fitzroy North over the course of the next year, that’s for sure.
