Sydney home market too hot, page-3

Residents in $30m bonanza

PUBLISHED: 14 Aug 2014 00:05:00 | UPDATED: 14 Aug 2014 12:17:59
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Fiona Maher with dog, Fritz, admits she is relieved the process has come to an end. 
Samantha Hutchinson
It is every homeowners’ dream. A group of eight residents in Sydney’s Epping had their homes individually valued at about $1.2 million in early 2012. This week they netted more than three times that amount when their homes sold in one line for a price believed to higher than $30 million.
Put together, the slab of eight 1920s bungalows at 11-27 Cliff Road marketed by CBRE has the capacity to yield up to 138 apartments under new planning rules that allow residential developments of up to five storeys in the once-quiet streets around Epping’s centre.
“We never viewed this as an investment, it was always just the family home,” resident Chris Robertson told The Australian Financial Review. “We’re sorry to be leaving it. But yes, we got a good price.”
The planning changes came at a fortuitous time for Mrs Robertson and her family, who have been living in the same house for 30 years. Her husband, an engineer took redundancy a number of years ago. “I suppose this is a windfall, totally unexpected, but it gives you options to do a lot more . . . also to help family and other people,” she said.
Six months of negotiation


The deal was sealed on Friday after more than six months of negotiations.
Resident Fiona Maher was noticeably upbeat about the deal. A resident of 16 years with her family and three children, she admits she was relieved the bidding process had come to an end.
“It’s been stressful, but it’s also been exciting,” her daughter, Bronte Maher, said. “Originally it was shocking to see the quiet Cliff Road and these streets around here being developed into apartments, but when we saw building down the street we knew it was only a matter of time.”
The deal has highlighted the fickle fortunes of the property market where the difference between marginal and meteoric rates of capital growth can be determined by something as arbitrary as the mark of a planner’s pen.
But some experts said that, in time, all suburbs bordering Sydney’s transport system and railways lines are likely to experience the same boom.
“The main driver for house prices is going to be closeness to major transport nodes and, in particular, railway stations,” Urban Taskforce chief executive Chris Johnson said.
“And this same thing is going to rip along all railway lines in the city. . . because the only way we’re going to be able to house future growth is through higher rise buildings that offer reasonable access to the city and jobs,” he said.
Elegance and convenience


Located 20 kilometres north-west of Sydney’s city centre, Epping is characterised by elegant bungalows on blocks as large as 800 square metres in close reach of a major railway station and good bus links.
In a city where issues of affordability and land constraints have pushed demand for new housing to fever pitch, Epping’s attributes of large blocks and good public transport links have not been lost on the NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure.
The Department earmarked the area for medium- and high-density development in March last year, along with other suburbs including North Ryde, Randwick and Macquarie Park.
Both local and international developers have been clamouring for a slice of the suburb ever since.
Residents on Cliff Road, Hazelwood Place, Forest Grove and many of the other roads sprawling out from Epping’s train station said they had been approached by developers hoping to buy up an aggregation of land. Neighbours and local action group members Joy and Chris Dunkerley got used to the sound of developers knocking at their doors.
“Twenty? We’ve had that and then some come to the door,” said local action group member Joy Dunkerley.
Action groups urge solidarity


Local action groups including the Common Good Group have urged residents to form into groups of at least two homes in order to present developers with land the requisite size to develop apartments.CBRE agents Matthew Ramsay and Danny Shi would not comment on the deal.
Otherwise, they’ll be left behind in homes overshadowed by apartments towering five storeys high with untold impact on their value.
The group has alerted elderly residents and those unfamiliar with buying and selling property to basic principles, such as not accepting options deals on their land and the idea that if a developer is promising the world, it is probably not what its cracked up to be.
“We’ve had people walk through the door and say in their best voice they’ll give us $1 million for our home, as if we’ve no clue what it’s worth,” Mr Robertson said.
Forest Grove resident Paul Jones said: “I just don’t think the department and the council have done enough to let residents know what these changes mean to them.”
Epping’s median house prices has soared by more than 30 per cent in the past two years, according to RP Data. In the same time, the median house price in the smart inner city suburb of Woollahra has risen by just 11 per cent, while neighbouring suburb Paddington has grown 18 per cent.
Some larger aggregations in Epping have the potential of netting eye-watering prices. A slab of 12 homes lining the quiet cul-de-sac of Hazelwood Place could reap as much $40 million, with potential to yield more than 210 apartments.
Residents may be on their way to the bank, but not all are laughing.
“It’s not all that enjoyable living with the prospect of being forced to sell up otherwise you’ll be the only one,” Mr Robertson said.
He plans on buying a house in a neighbouring suburb.
“It’ll be far enough away from the train station so this can never happen again.”