The top sale was 12 Dumaresq Rd, Rose Bay. It’s sold in the $45m-$48m range, sources advise. The same house was also the top sale in the first quarter of 2025, but back then it fetched $54.6m.
A Rose Bay home owner has copped a $10m loss on a luxury harbourfront mansion bought a year ago, in a what’s been a challenging quarter for prestige sales.
The total value of Sydney’s top 10 home sales for the first quarter of 2026 has dropped a whopping $74m on the same time last year.
The Dyson Austen Top 10 Prestige Residential Survey, revealed exclusively by News Corp, shows that the sales added up to $310.2m, 20 per cent down on the record-breaking $384.5m for the first quarter of 2025.
And most tellingly, the Rose Bay home that was the No.1 sale in the first quarter of 2025 is No.1 again in 2026, but it’s dropped up to $10m in value: last February it fetched $54.6m, but this March the same house sold again and multiple sources put the price in the $45m-$48m range.
It’s understood the owner’s son had taken up tennis, so they bought a home with a private tennis court elsewhere and then put the Rose Bay property up for sale.
RELATED: Inside Mosman’s priciest house this year
The Dumaresq Rd, Rose Bay, home has an incredible iconic view.
Counting the $3.8m stamp duty, the owner is well over $10m out of pocket.
Simon Feilich, the director of leading prestige property valuation firm Dyson Austen and author of the survey, says while the values are down, it’s “not Armageddon”.
“The educated market is taking a pause to evaluate,” he says.
“Sophisticated owners are not having knee-jerk reactions.
“There’s pressure on petrol, AI, the war, economy and interest rates, but we’ll see further activity going forward.”
He believes the Rose Bay sale on March 4 was “an anomaly rather than a trend”.
But his survey does show that whereas there were multiple sales in the $42m-$45m range and $50m in the first quarter of 2025, this quarter there was just one higher than $40m.
Top agents unanimously agree that it’s an extremely challenging market, with veteran players such as Bill Malouf of Highland recently describing it as “tough”.
He’d dropped the price of former cricketer Michael Clarke’s Vaucluse mansion by $2m, from above $20m to $18m+.
And whereas last April a Mosman home scraped into the top 10 with a $26m sale, this year all of the top sales were in the east.
The $22m+ sale of 20 The Grove, Mosman, via Adrian Bridges of Raine and Horne and Michael Coombs of Atlas, just missed out.
1. 12 DUMARESQ RD, ROSE BAY, $45m-$48m
Even the pool gets the view.
Indulgence magazine owner Linge Dai bought the five-bedroom harbourfront residence in Dumaresq Rd for $54.6m last February.
A caveat on the title shows it’s been bought by Australian entrepreneur Tony Denny, who was once a highly successful used car salesman in the Czech Republic but is now a property developer with a net worth of $780m, on March 4 this year.
It’s yet to settle, but multiple sources say it’s sold in the $45m-$48m range, so even if it’s the higher figure once the $3.8m stamp duty is included she’s lost in excess of $10m.
The most recent agents Black Diamondz’s Monika Tu and her husband Jad Khattar have been contacted for comment.
It had a $59m guide, with the SMH reporting: “Dai and his family are relocating after their child achieved success in tennis. They have purchased a new residence with a private tennis court to support their training and lifestyle.”
Back when sold last February by Pillinger principal Brad Pillinger and Sotheby’s chief Michael Pallier, the $54.6m achieved for then vendor recycled shopping bag businessman Frank Qiang Geng and Juanjuan Zhao had set a Rose Bay record.
Though they’d wanted $75m when listed the previous June.
The Rose Bay record was smashed again in December with the $83.5m sale of a five-bedroom home, owned by James Packer adviser Lawrence Myers and his wife Sylvia.
But there’s been nothing even close to that this quarter.
2 and 3: 81 YARRANABBE RD, DARLING POINT, 40m each
An artist’s impression of one of the apartments at 81 Yarranabbe Rd, Darling Point.
Two luxury apartments in Sydney’s east sold off-the plan for $40m apiece in March.
The temptation may be to think one went to a wealthy expat, someone living overseas wanting a harbourfront bolthole. And maybe the other went to a foreign investor?
But no.
“Both buyers are local, mature empty nesters used to living on the harbourfront, one couple, one single,” says one of the 1st City agents, Brad Caldwell-Eyles, who sold both apartments in the exclusive 81 Yarranabbe development on the harbourfront in Darling Point alongside his colleague Julian Hasemer.
4. 5002/1A BARANGAROO AVE, BARANGAROO, Sub $36m
The apartment sold for just under $36m in March.
The new co-owner of Luna Park, Bill Gravanis, paid just under $36m on an apartment at Barangaroo’s Crown Residences in March.
Gravanis, who is also the co-owner of hospitality firm Oscars Group, bought the 420sqm level 50 residence from Tony Tartak, founder of waste remover Bingo Industries, and his wife, Mary.
They’d bought two lots off the plan for a total of $40m in 2021, but sold one of them for $35.5 million.
It’s not clear what Gravanis, with his brother Mario, paid for Luna Park in 2024, though the guide had been $70m.
The Barangaroo sales agents had been Steven Chen of The Agency and Luke Hayes of Colliers.
5. 8 ROSEMONT AVE, WOOLLAHRA, $26m
The home is in one of the suburb’s best streets.
The February sale of the grand six-bedroom home of former Perpetual chairman and philantropist Charles Curran and his late wife philanthropist Eva is in one of the suburb’s best streets.
It took three years to sell, with the guide initially being $29m via Brad Pillinger of Pillinger and Michael Pallier of Sotheby’s, with buyer’s agent Sam Green of Advantage Buyers Agents.
On an 873sqm block, it comes with a pool, entertainment terrace, logia, Paul Bangay-designed gardens and a media room.
It had previously traded for $750k in 1981.
Curran appeared on the Australian Financial Review Rich List in 2015 with a $294m fortune, attained through his ownership of regional TV stations before they sold to Network Ten and Southern Cross in 1996.
6. 3.2/135 CURLEWIS ST, BONDI BEACH, $25.2m
An artist’s impression of the Avra penthouse.
An expat who divides his time between Sydney and the French Riviera resort town of Antibes bought the penthouse of Clutch Capital’s Avra, setting a record apartment price for Bondi Beach, in February.
He just wanted a Sydney pad,” says SRM Residential agent Ben Stewart of the 335 sqm four-bedder.
“It will have views from the balcony overlooking the beach.”
The cheapest unit on offer is priced at $10.5m: a 190sq m three- to four-bedroom apartment with an additional 40sq m balcony.
7. 8 ROSSLYN ST, BELLEVUE HILL, $25m
The Rosslyn St, Bellevue Hill home comes with a resort-style pool.
Originally designed by Brian Meyerson of MHN Design Union, the recently refreshed residence, purchased by Huang, Lu and Yang for $16.3m in 2023, sold again in March via Ashley Bierman and Thomas Popple of Ray White Double Bay.
It offers six bedrooms, six bathrooms and a three-car garage on 690sqm.
Spanning three levels with “tranquil Sydney vistas” and a northerly aspect, it comes with a resort-style pool.
8. 1&2/126 BRIGHTON BOULEVARD, NORTH BONDI, About $24m
The new owner intends to convert the duplex into one large family home.
Billionaire Bondi Beach investor Will Vicars, who owns $150m of eastern suburbs coastal real estate including a 1920s Art Deco triplex in this this street, looked at it but didn’t buy it. Richardson and Wrench Double Bay principal Michael Dunn, who sold it alongside his son, James Dunn, couldn’t discuss the purchaser but said it was a family who wanted to turn the duplex on a 475sqm block into a single residence.
“There’s a bit of hesitation out there because of world events, but it’s not stopping Aussies wanting to buy their dream home,” he said.
The agents had initially thought developers may snap it up. There were eight or nine parties interested initially, but in the final days it was down to three or four.
Records show the property, which has panoramic ocean views, was owned by a Peggy Chan and Ching Chow. The records don’t indicate when they bought it or how much they’d paid.
9. 2 ST MERVYNS AVE, POINT PIPER, $23m+
The Mervyns Ave, Point Piper home originally had hopes of $25m.
There were hopes of $25m when this six-bedroom residence on a 754sqm block, owned by contemporary artist Ilana Kresner and Jeremy Samuel, managing director at Anacacia Capital. first listed last October via The Agency’s Ben Collier and Hamish Robertson.
Just one house back from Seven Shillings Beach, the modern home has postcard views of the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and everything in between.
Though not quite the price they’d hoped for, the couple have done well, having purchased it for $7.2m in 2012.
The P&O style home, renovated by architect Alec Tzannes, is built over three storeys,
10. 22 VILLAGE HIGH RD, VAUCLUSE, $23m
The home “blends the calm of Santorini with the spirit of LA”.
This award-winning residence sold via award-winning agent Alexander Phillips and Kenji Fukushima, of PPD, who are opening a Ray White Woollahra office in August.
Records show the Wise family had bought the original home on the 841sqm block for $4m a decade ago, commissioning the six-bedroom, seven-bathroom residence ‘Wanderlust’ which “blends the calm of Santorini with the spirit of LA”.
With interiors by Conway + Wise, it won the Best Residential Interior and Best Kitchen Design In Australia voted by Asia Pacific Property Awards.
It comes with a “Taj Mahal travetine stone kitchen” and the lower level has been conceived as the ultimate wellness retreat with a rumpus room, gym and infrared sauna, 10m pool, yoga deck and sunken firepit.
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