Beachside suburb has a new apartment sales record

Amanda Sheppeard - Manly Daily Property Editor

FLYING in the face of talk of a Sydney-wide property downturn, a dated three-bedroom apartment overlooking Manly’s Shelly Beach has sold a month out from auction for a whopping $5.7 million.

The sale has smashed the previous square metre record for a Manly apartment, set in 2016 for a brand new luxury apartment next door.

That record was set in 2016 with the headline-making $9.5 million sale ($33,807 per sqm) of an apartment in the $43 million complex being developed by CostaFox at 102 Bower St and 12-13 Marine Pde.

The sale of 3/15 Marine Pde this week, for $41,000 per sqm has blown this one out of the water, said Anthony Walls, of Max Walls International.

“It was pretty big money for an old unit,” he said

He said there had been a massive amount of interest in the freehold apartment, with prospective buyers flying in from all over Australia and around the world just to look at it.

For some, by the time they made it, the deal had been done.

“I was able to tell one buyer who was coming from western NSW but I couldn’t turn the other people around from Singapore and Jakarta as they were mid-flight,” Mr Walls said.

These buyers were disappointed they had missed out on the apartment, but philosophical they would find something else.

In fact he said he had multiple buyers, most from overseas and country Queensland and NSW, who had tasked him with finding them a northern beaches bolthole.

He would not speculate on just how many there were, but said there were more than 10, and that ‘the cashed up buyers are still out there’.

“They’re private clients, many offshore, they’re just normal people, they’re not famous,” he said.

“They’ve given me budgets of $10 million to spend, from Eastern Hill in Manly to Collaroy, and they’re genuine.

“There’s no banks, it’s cash.”

Mr Walls conceded that there was a two-speed market, with banks tightening lending conditions and prices in some areas cooling, while high end properties in popular areas like Manly were still going strong.

He said his buyers were looking for homes close to the coast, with privacy, space and the ability to ‘lock up and leave’ high on the list of requirements.

“The people from way out west — they just want it for a holiday pad,” he said.

Mr Walls said the sale of the Marine Pde property had happened very quickly because the owners, who had lived there for some 30 years and were downsizing, were happy with the offer.

“I’m absolutely certain that if it had run to auction I would have got more,” he said.

“There is a ferocious appetite for Manly apartments.”

He said the new owner planned to extensively renovate the 1980s-style, three-bedroom apartment overlooking Shelly Beach.

Latest NewsBeachside suburb has a new apartment sales recordWednesday, 21 March 2018

Share This Article

Previous Articles