Got a spare $60 million? This could be yours
By Jonathan Chancellor | smh.com.au | 24 January
The grand Italianate villa, Villa Veneto
Entrepreneur Andrew Banks and his wife, Andrea, have listed their Point Piper harbourfront property, Villa Veneto, for sale.
The grand Italianate villa, which has a 21-person lift, has been marketed in the Christie's Great Estate international property magazine.
The asking price is not given, but the formal offering comes 16 months after it was quietly listed with expectations of $60 million.
Most Sydney vendors are still in holiday mode with just 550 properties newly advertised in the week ending January 12.
It was the smallest new weekly listings tally since early 2007, said an analyst with R.P. Data, Cameron Kusher.
In the same January week last year there were 720 new listings, he said.
But the market has a large leftover stock from last year, about 11,000 properties across Sydney. At the same time last year there were 7600 properties advertised for sale.
The luxury Villa Veneto, which would set a Sydney and Australian record at anything above $45 million, was finished in 2004. It took two years to build. Designed by Michael Suttor, the five-level house cost about $15 million. The Banks's consolidation of the 1424-square-metre double block cost $14 million in 2001, when the couple gave their residential address as Trump Tower in New York.
The mantle of Australia's most expensive residence rests with Coolong, the $45 million harbourfront house sold by the Allco founder David Coe to Ivan Ritossa, global head of foreign exchange at Barclays Capital, in September.
Despite the sharemarket collapse following the subprime lending crisis in the US, prestige prices were resilient for most of last year.
But on Christmas Eve the luxury furniture retailer Anthony Scali paid about $18.5 million for a Point Piper house for which he had offered $24 million earlier in the year.
The property, which comes with plans for a new house, had previously sold for $13.5 million in 2002. It was sold by the sharemarket investor John Dalley. Mr Scali lost ground on the sale of his Vaucluse harbourfront, securing about $12.5 million, several months after being offered about $18 million.
At Balgowlah Heights a house listed with $10 million hopes was sold by the Macquarie Bank Capital executive Michael Cook for $7.6 million.
