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Is it better to invest in shares or property? Point Piper’s surprising answer
By Lucy Macken
In the great shares versus real estate investment debate, former ASX chief Dominic Stevens has proved somewhat of a poster boy for high-end property, given the gains on his previous homes and despite his day job.
Stevens and his wife Emma’s last splash on title records was as owners of the Bellevue Hill trophy home, Belhaven, for which they paid $21 million in 2017 and, after a decent renovation, were approached by a buyer offering $52 million. Who could say no?
The Point Piper home sold by Geoff Cousins and Darleen Bungey to Dominic and Emma Stevens.Credit: Domain
Their former Bellevue Hill home also outshone the best of the share price gains: it was purchased for $8.7 million in 2005 and sold for $14 million in 2018.
Their former Victorian manor in Woollahra was picked up in 1996 for $1.6 million, and sold for $4.46 million in 2005, and to none other than former NAB markets boss Drew Bradford.
Dominic Stevens announced his retirement as ASX chief in early 2022.Credit: Rhett Wyman
Next up, the Stevens are off to Point Piper where they are the $23 million buyers of the designer home of environmental activist Geoff Cousins and his author wife Darleen Bungey.
Sold by Sotheby’s Clint Ballard and Michael Pallier, the purchase price wasn’t quite the $30 million that Cousins had hoped for last year but should more than cover the $20 million they have paid for a penthouse in Paddington’s Paddington Green complex.
Zero gains
Not every house sale in the eastern suburbs is like winning Millionaire Hot Seat. Take the ultra-contemporary house in Dover Heights recently sold off-market by investment manager Ryan Lee, son of prominent Perth property tycoon Simon Lee.
The YSG Studio-designed residence has been resold for $11.5 million, which is the exact price Lee paid for it three years ago.
The award-winning YSG Studio design has resold for $11.5 million, the same price it last sold for three years ago.
At the time Lee bought it – sight unseen – it was sold by PPD’s Alexander Phillips on behalf of recruiter Jason Johnson and Portia Thomson, who had commissioned the rebuild.
And Lee’s savvy buyer? Locals Flavia and Geraldo Caspary, a shareholder in AgTech company MaGrowTec and AI digital healthcare platform Virusight Diagnostic.
Lessons in vendor finance
The Block’s Shelley Craft showed us all how lucrative property flipping could be when she sold her Byron Bay home for $9 million, but a year later, the same house offers a lesson in vendor finance.
Pacifico House was built in 2020 by Shelley Craft and Christian Sergiacomi and sold using vendor finance.Credit: Michael Lean
To recap, the Belongil Beach house was built by Craft and her husband, selling agent Christian Sergiacomi on a site they purchased in 2017 for $1.35 million to a design by architect Paul Uhlmann. Even with build costs, it was an impressive capital gain.
What wasn’t known at the time was Craft sold the house to a company, PSAFLH Pty Ltd, with vendor finance.
Shelley Craft is the presenter of The Block, and a renowned property flipper.Credit:
Vendor finance is a private loan arrangement between a buyer and seller in which the buyer borrows some or all of the money from the seller. The loan is usually repaid in instalments with interest.
It remains unknown how much Craft loaned to secure the bullish sale, but according to a source familiar with the terms of the deal, she has come out of the sale ahead financially thanks to the stonking sale price and periodic interest repayments on the vendor finance throughout the one-year settlement and in the year since.
But the loan arrangement remains lodged on title care of a caveat.
What’s more, the purchase was settled with the help of another loan, a $4.875 million mortgage from Oak Capital on a one-year term and on interest of between 9.99 per cent to 19 per cent.
That one-year loan term expired in February and the property has been returned to the market with a guide of $6.75 million, representing a 25 per cent discount on the sale price.
The purchasing company is controlled and owned by Phoebe Neylon, wife of tech industry veteran and clean-energy entrepreneur Sean Neylon, who is best known as the founding director of Australia’s first listed internet media company, LibertyOne.
Sean Neylon is yet to respond to inquiries about the sale, but a separate source said they half expect the Neylons’ company to withdraw the property from sale before its scheduled auction on April 24.
Likely fuelling such confidence is the Neylons’ part ownership of Liberty Energy Capital, which was an early investor in the waste-to-energy project developer Patriot Hydrogen, slated to float on the London Stock Exchange in coming months.
Then there’s the Neylons’ other Byron Bay property, Allure. Billed as a Hamptons-style beach house, it is listed with First National’s Su Reynolds with a guide of $6.5 million to $7 million.
Allure is a five-bedroom house at Byron Bay on offer for $6.5 million to $7 million.Credit: Domain
That second Byron Bay house is owned by one of Phoebe Neylon’s corporate entities and was purchased in 2021 for $6 million. It was used to guarantee another loan of $4.5 million for the Belongil Beach house.
House of Westfield
The Bellevue Hill childhood home of Westfield heirs Betty Saunders-Klimenko, Monica Saunders-Weinberg and their brother Mark Saunders is on sale for $30 million.
Mark Saunders, of the Westfield founding family, is selling his Bellevue Hill home for $30 million.Credit: Domain
It is currently owned by Saunders but was originally purchased by his late father, Westfield co-founder John Saunders, who paid £12,260 in 1962.
The family home was rebuilt in 2015 by Tonka Andjelic Design into what is now a three-level house with five bedrooms, a games room, a cinema room, a pool and a gymnasium.
Saunders Snr died in 1997, a year after the property was transferred to his only son for $975,000.