Brighton Victorian Villa Lists for $5m Two Years After Selling for $7m

‘Rolvenden’, a c1888 Victorian villa on nearly a half acre block at 139-141 New Street came to market this week. What is surprising is that the asking price is $2m less than the property’s $7.0m sale price back in 2010. Surprising to the Radical Terrace, the listing agent actually responded to our pricing enquiry letting us know that they “don’t have market feedback as yet, but…expect buyer interest to be in excess of $5 million dollars.” Don’t have market feedback? Doesn’t a 2010 sale of $7m indicate a pretty close comparable, seeing that it’s the same house?

Also a bit surprising is the agents’ recycling of its old 2010 listing photos of the property. Granted, those pictures are sufficient in displaying the positive attributes of the home, but definitely leave questions on the current state of the property on the table, especially when such a drastic price cut in involved. The 5-bedroom, 6-bathroom home comes with a very unique garaging/carriage house accessed via a large pebbled driveway. The home was renovated extensively between its 2003 sale of $2.005m and its 2010 sale of $7.0m. 

The home itself is perhaps the most prominent - and certainly the largest - on a relatively desirable stretch of New Street, otherwise characterised by more modest $2m-$3m villas on far smaller parcels. As is typically the case with anomalously large historic homes in inner suburban locations, Rolvenden was among the first to be developed in its pocket of Brighton and sat in relative isolation for its first 30 years. MMBW maps dating to the turn-of-the-century reveal just a modest neighbour to the north, the stately Victorian Italianate ‘Bronte’ to the south (now situated at 2 Sussex Street), and a small handful of homes directly across the street. 

The listing: ‘Rolvenden’, 139-141 New Street, Brighton

Click below for more listing images and the property floor plan.

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A Rare Loser in South Yarra: What Once Was $4.5m is Now $3.8m

It’s never a good thing to sell a home for less than your purchase price. And, to be honest, it’s a bit surprising to find such an example in South Yarra. Nonetheless, they do exist as is evidenced with the recent listing of 9 Kensington Road. The home was purchased by its current owners for $4.5m in April 2010 and now agents Mark Wridgway and Jeremy Fox of RT Edgar are shopping around for humbler $3.8m+ expectations (unless, of course, they’re underquoting…which is a whole different story altogether…). The 4/5-bedroom terrace is well-renovated, comes with a rare single car garage, and is situated on Kensington Road, one of South Yarra’s original powerhouse streets of prestige residences, now dominated by regal terraces and desirable apartment blocks (with a few notable mansions at the far northern end of the cul-de-sac). The interiors were designed by Stuart Rattle and feature a conservatory overlooking the urban courtyard garden and plunge pool (which is perhaps the most unique trait of this terrace).

When one encounters a listing at a loss, the first thought is that the owners overpaid. However, #9’s next-door neigbhour #7 on an identical sized lot lacking off-street parking traded hands several months earlier in 2010 for $4.15m, making the $4.5m purchase price of 9 Kensington in 2010 seem justifiable. 

We’ll be eager to see the price at which this property trades at its auction in a few weeks.

The listing: 9 Kensington Road, South Yarra

Click below for more images and a FLOOR PLAN!

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This $3m+ Potts Point Home That Just Won’t Sell…

…and we don’t really know why. 

Since 14 St Neot Avenue last sold in Aug 2007 for $3.0m, it’s almost spent more time on the market than off. Starting in Nov 2009, the 3-bedroom home shopped around offers just shy of $4m through Richardson & Wrench agents Jason Boon and Geoff Cox. By February 2010, the home was removed from market during the winter months, only to be re-listed with reduced mid-$3mil hopes later in the year. It remained on the market for another 8 months. Now the home has reappeared with “interest around $3m.” But it begs the question, why is this home failing to sell at a premium (or why is it failing to sell in the first place?). It baffles us as the home is well-renovated (albeit with too much carpeting and an odd bathroom/closet combo in the main bedroom), comes with a whopping four car spaces (a huge premium in Potts Point) and it’s a well-maintained HOUSE on a well-maintained cul-de-sac block a hop, skip, and a jump from all that is good about Potts Point. 

The home has greater square footage, better architectural heritage, a better location, and more car parking and outdoor space than any apartment listed at a similar price in Potts Point. Is it 14 St Neot’s status as a house that is deterring buyers? Are Potts Point buyers seeking out low maintenance apartment living? Why is 14 St Neot Avenue failing to sell?!? Tell us your thoughts below! 

See more listing photos, floor plan, and information below.

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UPDATE: Tragedy in Brighton East: ‘Otley’ Sells at a Loss

UPDATE: Hat-tip to ‘Edwardian’, one of the Radical Terrace’s favourite commentators, for letting us know that Otley did in fact sell at a loss. The final price? $2.665m. Not quite as bad as we expected, but most definitely still a loser…

It was only in March when we last saw ‘Otley’, a single story 1887 Victorian Italianate villa (with three story tower!), listed and sold. So recent, in fact, we can’t even find a record of its sale price through JP Dixon Real Estate Brighton. Nonetheless, the home popped up on the market today (just a few months later), now listed through Hodges Brighton agents Sarah Korbel and Campbell Cooney. Otley’s return to the market highlights the villa’s roller coaster track record. 

Otley, c1890, as seen from what was initially designed as the front of the property: facing west toward Point Nepean Road (now Nepean Highway). Today, the property is accessed from the south.

Let’s start in the beginning of [Melbourne real estate] time: the 1850s (yes, yes, the city existed several decades prior, but for speculative real estate purposes, the Gold Rush marks when shit got real). The Melbourne establishment and professional class solidly resided in East Melbourne and the St Kilda Road corridor stretching to St Kilda Hill. The coastal stretch south of St Kilda belonged to wealthy Western Districts landholders who initially colonised the area, Brighton, as a holiday getaway. By the time the 1880s land boom took hold of the city, tracts of land were speculatively developed along all established lines of infrastructure. City workers were attracted to the train lines that extended to Toorak, Armadale, and Malvern to the south east and to Hawthorn, Kew, and Camberwell to the east. Otley, located south and east of the train lines, was initially located off Point Nepean Road (now the Nepean Highway). For all intents and purposes, it likely seemed as a growth corridor for the developer of Otley (especially seeing that Mt Eliza, further along the same road, became a desirable holiday getaway during the same time). However, not everything turned out as planned, and the bust that followed the boom saw the inland corridor of Brighton (now “Brighton East”) without solid transportation links and only quasi-developed at best. As late as 1945, development only began to creep close to the then-isolated ‘Otley’ (see image below). 

At the time of the above image, Otley must have looked like an outsider amongst the new construction of the inter-war and post-war years (and the farm land that existed only a few hundred metres from the property). Other homes of similar vintage to Otley were at least a full kilometre closer to the water in prime Brighton. The Radical Terrace imagines the home was a tough sell back in those days when the Victorian Italianate aesthetic seemed quite archaic, stodgy, and backwards-looking.

However, fast forwarding to recent times, Otley seems to be flip-flopping between a tough sell and a desirable piece of history. Let’s crack open the sales timeline:

May 1998: $700k
Feb 2001: $1.1m
May 2009: $2.95m
Feb 2010: $2.984m
Mar 2012: ???

And now? The home has been listed at a major loss, only seeking between “$2.25m and $2.5m.” OUCH! Most notably, it was discovered, is the renovations that occured between Otley’s May 2009 sale and today. Digging around online forums, The Radical Terrace discovered that most period features in the non-Heritage Listed home had been ripped out post-2009, leaving the home with grey carpeting where original hardwood once sat, an institutional-looking kitchen, and a flat ceiling where original mouldings once highlighted the height of the 19th century home. Perhaps the current owners’ sad renovation is being valued as such by the open market? Even still, the for a four-bedroom home with pool on a 1600sqm block of land, the price seems reasonable, even in the B+ Brighton East location; so why the dramatic price chop? We’re not sure, but we do know that someone stands to lose a fair bit of money and we’re just thankful it’s not us.

The listing: Otley, 1 Clive Street, Brighton East

Walter Burley Griffin’s Last and Largest Home Listed at a Loss

Walter Burley Griffin, one of Australia’s most prominent and well-known architects (and urban planner of Canberra…and Castlecrag) built several distinguished homes in Sydney’s Upper North Shore. None as large, however, as the c1936 6-bedroom Prairie style manse in Pymble known as ‘Coppins’. Situated on a massive 1.5 acre allotment on Telegraph Road - one of the North Shore’s premier streets - Coppins possesses a tennis court and a swimming pool on its sprawling land. What it doesn’t possess is a large price. Listing agent Mark Blake of Luschwitz is asking only $3.5m+ for the property. Considering the landmark home last sold Apr 2001 for $4.7m (although Margie Blok is reporting that it sold for $6.1m back then, we can’t confirm her number), it’s safe to say the owners will be taking a hefty loss to their pocket books. The home itself has been on-and-off the market for the length of the Radical Terrace’s memory (circa 2004/05) for prices as high as $8.5m to as low as $4.9m…but never dipping into the $3mils!!

We’re truly bamboozled that this home will effectively sell for land value alone. Perhaps the implied expense of restoring a Griffin home has deterred deep-pocketed potential buyers? Tell us in the comments why you think this home is having a tough time selling!

UPDATE: As Margie Blok is reporting, Coppins is on the chopping block after the bankruptcy of owner Michael Kwok. The indicative $3.5m price is likely just a starting point for the bank. But still…

(The above curved, vaulted ceiling reminds us of Griffin’s iconic domed Dining Hall at Newman College in Melbourne.)

The listing: Coppins, 29 Telegraph Road, Pymble

Really Large Kitchen Island Lists at a Loss

An impressive modern abode fronting Terrigal beach (and a beach ball’s throw away from the Terrigal Lagoon) in Wamberal listed today at $3.8m, a pretty hefty loss on the $4.15m the vendor’s purchased the property for back in 2007 (the good ole’ days). And did you see the kitchen island? It’s huge!

Matt Reynolds of Matt Reynolds Realty has the listing.