The Australian Financial Review has spoken to the team behind the weekend's most intriguing property sale for our column, How it Sold.
The property: A five-bedroom, family home at 23 Montalto Avenue Toorak, VIC, 3142. Sold through EOI for $8 million-plus.
Who was the agent/agency? Tim Derham, Abercromby's Real Estate - Armadale. Ada Taylor RT Edgar Toorak.
How long was this on the market? [Ada] The original campaign went six months, then we did 6 months, then we ran 6, 7 weeks. We did a 3 week EOI, which closed on 12 December. It sold on 17 January, about five weeks later.
Why did this one sell? It was a fabulous family home and had a wonderful renovation by the heritage architects Lovell Chen.
Was it overpriced? Of course not.
What did you think it would go for? What we sold it for.
What was surprising about it?
[Ada] It sold twice in 8 months. With the first sale, that purchaser did have residency here. The problem was she has permanent residency in Australia, but her money wasn't here. To the very last moment, she was still trying to get her funds. A lot of the time, when we've been working with these transactions, the buyer just vanishes. In this case, the purchaser was in daily contact with me. But the simple fact was that the vendor of 23 Montalto had plans and we simply couldn't wait any longer. I work for the vendor, so I was completely under their instructions. They were incredibly accommodating in every way possible. But there comes a point where you have to draw a line in the sand and rescind the contract and start again. The buyer was devastated. She'd paid – I saw some emailed correspondence – over $US200,000 in fees to banks in Asia to release the funds.
We then went with an EOI campaign. We set same price guide as the original campaign. It was a fairly well-known property by this stage, so everyone knew what it sold for. We did go over the date. we were then squeezed in just prior to Christmas. Toorak families go away. The second buyer, a Melbourne-born and raised family living in England for a long time, came out in January and saw the property. They ended up also buying the adjacent tennis court.
Did the clampdown on sending money out of China affect the Toorak market?
23 Montalto Avenue was perhaps the first to be picked upon, but it was superseded by many more. Montalto Avenue was one of what's been shown to be half a dozen, if not more, in Toorak alone affected by this clampdown.
Does that clampdown persist?
It's very hard to discern [between local Chinese buyers and overseas-based buyers] at an open, but there does appear to be a lot of Chinese activity.
Do you reckon we'll see another result like this: a) next week b) next year c) next cycle d) never?
I would foresee this is an incredibly strong market. In January alone, in Toorak, I sold $19.05 million, which for January, considering everyone's away and big campaigns haven't started, is a really good indicator of how hot the market is.
