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19 Bayview Hill Rd, Rose Bay was the highest home price for the financial year.<\/p>\n
Sydney\u2019s back in top spot nationally on the prestige property sales list for this financial year, but there\u2019s no doubt the market\u2019s hit the brakes.<\/p>\n
Experts agree there\u2019s been a slowdown over the past six months, and particularly over the past three.<\/p>\n
This is reflected in the latest Dyson Austen Top 20 Prestige Residential Survey, with the director of the leading prestige property valuation firm, Simon Feilich, saying: \u201cWe have observed a clear pause in transactional activity in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sydney\u2019s east dominates the top 20 list, but there are three entries from Mosman, No. 10, 15 and 19, and two from Toorak in Melbourne, No. 3 and No. 14.<\/p>\n
The Harbour city is back on top for the financial year with an $83.5m sale in Rose Bay.<\/p>\n
Melbourne had stolen the show the previous financial year, with last February\u2019s sale to the Bastas family of the Toorak mansion Coonac<\/a> and a block of apartments next door equating to $136.1m, a national record, beating two $130m sales in Point Piper. <\/p>\n RELATED:<\/p>\n The biggest apartment sale of the year<\/a><\/p>\n Vanessa Birkenstock, wife of billionaire Alex Birkenstock, now resides in the Rose Bay home with her husband.<\/p>\n Although the total value of sales for the financial year was similar over the financial year, with just over $1bn in sales for both years, there were just seven sales over $39.5m for the first six months of this year compared with 13 for the same period last year.<\/p>\n And over the past three months there have been just three big sales that made the list \u2014 one of them in Melbourne \u2014 half the number of last year. \u201cThis reflects heightened caution in this niche market,\u201d Feilich said.<\/p>\n He attributes this year\u2019s slowdown to higher interest rates, inflation, global instability, budgetary changes and sharemarket instability.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a temporary pause, not a structural decline,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Veteran prestige agent Brad Pillinger, of Pillinger, who was behind the financial year\u2019s top $83.5m sale in the days leading up to last Christmas, with his co-agent, Steven Chen of the Agency, agrees.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, this financial year \u2014 particularly the last quarter of last year \u2014 was very encouraging,\u201d Pillinger said.<\/p>\n He also thinks the \u201cpause\u201d will be temporary, with the market improving in spring. \u201cAt this sector of the market, minor economic changes don\u2019t affect people\u2019s life decisions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Chen was instrumental in two of the sales on the list, thanks to billionaire Alex Birkenstock, heir of the German leather sandal family fortune, buying two of them. <\/p>\n 1. 19 Bayview Hill Rd, Rose Bay, $83.5m <\/p>\n Buyer\u2019s agent Simon Cohen helped the Birkenstocks find the stunning residence.<\/p>\n Birkenstock, 57, and his former model wife Vanessa, had been living in Melbourne but Alex dreamt of living by Sydney harbour and, with a budget of up to $200m, enlisted top buyer\u2019s agent Simon Cohen to help him find his dream mansion. They\u2019d had their eye on the five-bedroom residence, Bayview Hill House in Bayview Hill Rd, owned by James Packer lieutenant Lawrence Myers and his wife, Sylvia, listed seven months earlier with Pillinger and Chen. The guide had been $90m, but Cohen helped him whittle it down \u2026the billionaire heir didn\u2019t want to blow the $200m all at once.<\/p>\n 2. 14 Tivoli Ave, Rose Bay, $82.5m<\/p>\n The home is right next door to the grand Villa Florida, once owned by Barry Humphries.<\/p>\n Simon Cohen was buyer\u2019s agent with this sale, too, last October, when John Angelis, 30, and Yianni Gourlas, 31, snapped up the grand waterfront, right next door to John\u2019s dad\u2019s house, trophy waterfront Villa Florida, once owned by Barry Humphries. Businessman Jim Angelis, was loaded, having sold Australia\u2019s largest privately-owned insurance broker, for $411m in 2021, and had bought the iconic Spanish Mission style mansion $45m, and then rebuilt it for $20m. Suggestions the rich dad helped the lads buy the $80m house next door were denied \u2014 John and Yianni were best mates at The Scots College and were now highly successful businessmen, co-chief executive officers at Clearlake Insurance Brokers.<\/p>\n 3. Lansell Rd, Toorak, circa $80m<\/p>\n The 6,340sq m Lansell Rd, Toorak property combines two houses and a tennis court.<\/p>\n Chemist Warehouse co-founder Jack Gance, cashed up after the firm\u2019s $30bn merger with Sigma Healthcare, pounced on this 12-bedroom mansion with 10 bathrooms and parking for 10 cars last November. The 6,340 estate, owned by property developer Andy Zhang, who heads development firm V-Leader, had amalgamated two properties. He\u2019d bought the first in 2015 for $17m and the neighbour in 2021 for $22m. He\u2019d intended to knock both houses down to create a mega compound, but changed his mind, enlisting Kay & Burton\u2019s Ross Savas and Nick Kenyon to sell it.<\/p>\n 4. 11 Coolong Rd, Vaucluse, $61.8m Back when this one sold at the start of last Spring, everyone thought the prestige market would just keep on booming.<\/p>\n The Vaucluse waterfront next door to Menulog co-founder Leon Kamenov sold last September. At the time, the huge deal was considered an indication that the trophy home market was \u201con fire\u201d at the start of spring, coming in the same week as two other big deals in the east \u2013 Iona in Darlinghurst for $37.5m and Carmel in Edgecliff for $28m.. The Vaucluse sale was a five-bedroom, six-bathroom residence with three-car garage, the home of the late Magda Moss. It had a $60m guide via Ray White Double Bay principal Elliott Placks in conjunction with Sotheby\u2019s principal Michael Pallier and several parties fought over it. The buyer was Xiaoyan Zhu, introduced by buyer\u2019s agent Sean Huang.<\/p>\n 5. 10-12A Victoria Rd, Bellevue Hill, $59m The empty block and the house behind it are now owned by Gretel Packer, who resides in the grand mansion Winston immediately behind that, further along the road. Picture: Million Dollar Listing, Sydney.<\/p>\n An unrenovated pink house and a neighbouring vacant block sold last October to Gretel Packer, whose mansion, Winston, was right next door. It was a perfect opportunity to expand her luxury compound by an extra 2631sq m, to a whopping 5,122sq m. The property was owned by hardware tsar the late Graham Nock, of the Nock & Kirby family. Nock had been approached many times by agents wanting to sell the huge property before his death in May at the age of 96. Ken Jacobs of Forbes was behind the off-market deal.<\/p>\n 6. 88 Wentworth Rd, Vaucluse, $57m This home was very special, says the agent, TRG founder Gavin Rubinstein.<\/p>\n A consortium of expats bought Sydney\u2019s most expensive house so far this calendar year, The Peninsula House owned by property magnate Steve Grant and his wife, Eliza, via TRG founder Gavin Rubinstein, in April. Rubinstein couldn\u2019t name the buyers, but said they were <\/p>\n four separate Aussies residing in different locations \u2014 from within Asia and Dubai \u2014 who saw the three-storey designer mansion on a 700sqm block as a \u201csafe haven\u201d for their money. The property is yet to settle. The Grants had bought the Michael Suttor-designed home for $14m in 2013 and called in Stafford Architecture and Hare + Klein interior designers for a revamp. \u201cWhat made it special \u2014 and it was very special \u2014 was the width of the waterfrontage, about 15m or 16m, so the whole house is connected to the water and you have views from every room,\u201d Rubinstein said.<\/p>\n 7. 83b\/Watermans Quay, Barangaroo, $54.1m This sale of this massive apartment with private pool only came to light last week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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