The Astor. Macquarie St. Sydney
By Jonathan Chancellor
Thursday, 20 December 2012


Yellow Brick Road boss Mark Bouris has had his pad in The Astor on Macquarie Street, Sydney quietly listed for sale for the past few months.

I
t was in 2006 when he bought the five-bedroom, two-storey north-east corner apartment from then Astor chairman Peter Kernaghan.

There's no price estimate available to Title Tattle from its listing agents, Lisa Steel and David Newgrosh, but it might have $10 million-plus hopes given its lavish renovation, and noting a two-bedroom 11th-floor unit comes with a $3.15 million asking price through McGrath Estate Agents.

It has an estimated 440 square metre space over what were three separate apartments.

Its also been available for rent at $3950 a week.

It's best known for when occupied by entertainer Barry Humphries, before it sold for $800,000 in 1987, and then extended with the addition of another adjoining apartment.

It comes with sweeping semi-spiral staircase to the upper level, where there is a "magnificent master bedroom suite" with private study, walk-in dressing room and ensuite bathroom.

The very private Mark Bouris has resticted internal photos to just the one image, although all who've been through say its a stunning apartment.

Title Tattle last inspected the apartment back in 1986 when its was Dame Edna's possum pit. At the time it was also a split-level triplex.


The then selling agent was Tim Mansfield at the Andrew Gibbons agency whose pioneering selling technique included a three minute promotional video.

The price back then was $1.25 million for the then seven bedroom apartment, with the apartment split back into two leaving one with the gracious wrought iron staircase for grand entrances.

The Astor is the 12-storey, 1920s company title block that once dominated not only the city skyline but Sydney society.

Despite being the city's oldest apartment complex - and facing serious competition from many nearby new developments – it continues to attract buyers, especially when a modernised apartment comes with parking elsewhere on the strip. Especially after the elegant Iain Halliday-designedrenovation benchmark set in the mid-1990s after style-setters, ad man John Nankervis and wife Amanda bought their $535,000 third-floor deceased estate unit. 

Bouris took up his ownership having previously had digs elsewhere on Macquarie Street, in the Bennelong complex.

Over the years the block of apartments has been home to Lisa Rochfort, who was the managing director of Australian couture jewellers Fairfax & Roberts, adman Harold Mitchell, Pioneer founder Sir Tristan Antico, broadcaster John Laws and artist Portia Geach.

Being company title, keeping track of pricing and sales figures is a little difficult, though in 1932 the eighth-floor north-east corner block was passed in at 4300 pounds.

Peter Kernaghan had knocked back $3.82 million when he sought to sell it in 2002.

The 1101 Astor listing, which had initial $3.35 million asking price,  is a north-east facing, two bedroom apartment.

Its possibly the apartment rented by the Sydney Harbour Bridge engineer Lawrence Ennis, of Dorman, Long & Co, who would look through his telescope to check on the progress of the bridge's construction.

The Astor was Sydney's highest residential building from 1923 until 1960 and its off-the-plan prices ranged from 1500 pounds to 2700 pounds.


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To read the full article published in Property Observer please click here.


 
 
PirimePropertyBuyer Sydney
There is an important relationship between selling agents and buyers’ agents in the property industry, and this association is based on trust and integrity. At the end of the day we work together in the best interests of our respective clients and it is a win-win situation all round. 

As a former real estate sales agent I have to admit I sometimes fell into the comfortable habit of “list, market and wait for the buyers to contact me”. This was the equivalent to being a trapdoor spider waiting for its prey to show up and swallow it. But complacency is a fatal mistake unless you are an arachnid. 

As well, the other strategy in those days was to offer conjunctions to other agents and hope they would solve my problem for me. 

But nowadays there is a brilliant option that real estate agents should use for every property on their books, not just because it will benefit you but because it will benefit your client. And it costs nothing! It is simply to work with a buyers’ agent. In New South Wales buyers' agents charge a fee to their client the buyer so there is no need to share commission on your sale with them.

You can even include this tactic in your marketing pitch for listings and you will be pleasantly surprised to see that vendors welcome this strategy with open arms. After all, it doesn’t cost them anything and hugely increases the chances of finding a cashed-up qualified buyer. And it is a great option to flogging your extensive out-of-date client database to prospects; no property seller ever bought that marketing strategy. 

Real estate agents should also recommend prospective buyers to buyer’s agents simply on a goodwill basis, and this is good practice for them. 

As an example, imagine that you have been dealing with a buyer who wants a specific type of property but you don’t have a suitable listing currently on your books. This is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate your desire to help them and initiate an on-going close personal relationship in the future. 

There are important benefits: 
  • You have done a favour to the buyer by demonstrating your desire to help them with no personal gain, and they will appreciate your selfless advice and integrity as an agent. Sooner or later they will come back to you.
  • The client may go cold on you and begin dealing with another agent (most likely a competitor). So it is better to use the opportunity to refer them to a trusted buyers’ agent who you know will look after their best interests. They will remember you for this.
  • The buyers’ agent will reciprocate the favour in future by personally recommending you as a real estate agent as you have now established a relationship based on trust and goodwill.

So talk to your favourite buyers’ agent about your listings and what you have coming up (don’t wait for them to contact you). Build up a close working relationship with them and grow your reputation by recommending buyers’ agents you know and trust. 

Everyone wins!

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Tim Mansfield is founder and principal of Sydney-based buyers' agency PrimePropertyBuyer

Please read the original article at PropertyObserver.com.au


 
 
Tim Mansfield
I first worked in the property business selling villa plots on the island of Menorca in the Spanish Balearic Islands. I was 18 years old then and full of teenage enthusiasm. It didn’t work out.  The company went bust and I lost my job. I was devastated. I had worked so hard.

Not long after I met the owner of a big real estate agency in England and he said “Come and join us.” He gave me a one-way airline ticket from Menorca to London to start my new employment. They collapsed within a year and I lost my job again.

When I was twenty years old I got another job with a company in London named Marcus Leaver and they wanted to start a business in Spain. It was very cold winter that year in England and I spoke Spanish so I grabbed it.

The year was 1974 and General Franco was still the Dictator in those days. The Australian Embassy in Madrid at the time needed a new office and they engaged me to find one for them. I never did but became great friends with the Ambassador at the time.

Marcus Leaver went bust in Spain; so I joined the British Army for a while, did my bit and left for the lucky country in 1982.

In the late 80’s I was Sales Manager at Andrew Gibbons Real Estate in Sydney’s Double Bay. Our crowning glory in those days was the sale of the famous Point Piper waterfront home Paradis Sur Mer (also known as Toison d’Or) for $19.2m. I later worked for Colliers International and set up their Prestige Homes & Holdings Division. Here is a quote from an article written then "
Tim Mansfield, of Colliers, is confident that come September, when the spring flowers bloom, people will put their property on the market again. Trouble is they have to buy somewhere else."

Years later I worked in Dubai as Sales Director of a well-known property development company. What happened? They went bust after the bubble burst there in 2008.

I have failed many times in my life but I am not a failure. We all fail at one time or another along our path in life. We all make mistakes and that is part of being human.

My own failures are where I went wrong in life . . .  like stepping stones along the way. You can fail on your own, or you can fail with the help of others when you go through life.

If you are blessed by having a family; a wife and children that you love and they love you, hold onto them forever.

You can go bankrupt; you can nearly starve to death and live on cold and windy streets under lamplights. Even then you can retain your dignity.

Life is not all about money. It is about your kindness to others without judgement. It is about words of encouragement to keep them going. It is about holding another person’s hand in yours, and a hug or a kiss that makes you feel that special bond that holds us all together.

At the end of the day who can judge better if I failed or not? Those that helped or those that put me down along the way?

It is only me who can be the final Judge. I am the one who knows the real things that I did to help others in life and never said . . .

There are three things you can do. Nothing else really matters:


  1. Help others
  2. Never give up on your dreams
  3. Don’t let people put you down
 
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Article contributed by Tim Mansfield, a 30 year global veteran in the real estate industry and Founder and CEO of Sydney-based Buyers’ Agents PrimePropertyBuyer at www.primepropertybuyer.com  You can follow Tim on Twitter by clicking here