We've decided to sell our Sydney former PPOR in North Narrabeen

Hi Everyone,

Well, we've decided to make our move to Brisbane permanent and have put our former PPOR in North Narrabeen up for sale. If we can't achieve the price point we want then we'll rent it out again for $800pw and we have excellent tennants lined up waiting. Given we now have the three units in Mona Vale we would retain good exposure to the Sydney market so can afford to sell this beautiful home. That would free some cash and allow us to proceed with our Bardon new PPOR build quickly.

For anyone interested, here's our listing:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-north+narrabeen-112788159

It has a great little video in it too which even has my beautiful dog Gerry featured... :)

Cheers,
Michael
 
Thanks Raj,

I just hope somebody can...

We originally asked high 9's and had a lot of interest, but the inclinator access was enough to dissuade these buyers so we've now dropped it to $925K+. That is really good buying for a master built house of that calibre in its location and on 1,600m2 of sub-tropical rainforest block.

We spent all of our Christmas holidays tidying it up and getting it ready to sell. I rebuilt the stairs at street level and the inclinator station. I also built the new garden bed seen at street level and the new letterbox. My wife, Kay, repainted the entire place internally and a lot of the external walls as well as all the decks. I enclosed the bearers in the downstairs family room and Kay painted these in teak as well.

She was working to 3am several nights and I was working all through the day every day for four weeks. Kay stayed on through January and kept working while I came back to Brisbane to start my new job.

We ran a small add in the Manly Daily and they loved the look of the place so ran a front page editorial on it with a page and a half of photos and narrative. Unfortunately, the interest garnished was washed out at the next open when it bucketed down.

We're hopeful of a good showing this weekend and will see how it goes. If its not sold by the end of February we will re-let to our selected tennants for $800pw as mentioned. They're a couple of sisters, one with a family. The split level allows them to live semi-autonomously. They had let the house in front of ours but the landlord wanted to increase their rent from $775pw to $850pw and the house was inferior to ours. They approached us when we mentioned we would let ours for $800pw if we didn't sell it. They've lived there for many years and would love to stay on so would make great tennants. They really looked after the house in front too.

But we're hopeful of achieving a sale in the next three weeks. Wish me luck.

Cheers,
Michael
 
That's a really nice house. Since it was only built recently, why does it only have one bathroom? It doesn't seem to be in keeping with the level of the home.

I don't know Sydney, or the area, but it looks like a really nice PPOR, but one bathroom would really turn me off.
 
Oh I love it! Absolutely love how the windows on the kitchen open out fully to the deck which looks massive, and the interior beam/pole-things. Great video and the photos are spot on to show off the features.

Did you guys build/design this yourselves? Has it been hard to make the emotional decision to leave it behind or are you off to bigger and better things (and places to live in Brisbane?)

Good luck with the sale! (Wish I could afford it!)
 
Hi Guys,

Ed, what high voltage power lines? There aren't any anywhere near the property. I think one of the outlook photos might show some somewhere but that might be zoomed in.

Fokas, many thanks! Yes, we designed, built, painted, finished it all ourselves. It was a huge job but very rewarding. And, yes, it was a huge decision to let it go so we can move on with our lives in Brisbane. I still click on the video link every now and again just to look at it... :(

But we need to sell so we can start building our next dream home in Brisbane. We've decided to meet the market and dropped the price down to $895K now which should see some increased interest. We were getting heaps of clicks but less conversion through to opens. We know we could hold out for a higher price but the market is still a buyers market so we've decided not to be too ambitious.

Even $895K would allow us to discharge the $650K mortgage and LOCs against it and leave us some cash to get going with the construction in Brisbane. We're looking forward to doing this next build so want to move forward.

Thanks,
Michael
 
That's a really nice house. Since it was only built recently, why does it only have one bathroom? It doesn't seem to be in keeping with the level of the home.

I don't know Sydney, or the area, but it looks like a really nice PPOR, but one bathroom would really turn me off.

Agreed. It will definitely put off buyers planning to spend 800+
 
Agreed. It will definitely put off buyers planning to spend 800+
Yep, that has been one of the comments, but there is definately scope in the design and layout for another bathroom to be added off the stairwell opposite the fourth bedroom and directly below the existing bathroom. Its already fully enclosed as a room with rear access for storage so would just need fitout and a door knocked through.

Other negative feedback has focussed on the inclinator access and the lack of a grassed yard for the kiddies.

But on the positive the feedback has stressed it is a magnificant architect designed house with huge bedrooms and open plan living with an enormous entertainers kitchen opening out to the top deck. The gardens are fantastic and the ambience in the tree tops is surreal.

It just needs someone to way the positives higher than the negatives. Sure, there's only one bathroom but its a hell of a bathroom.

We've had a fair bit of interest but it is still a tentative market so time will tell where we end up selling it at or if we re-let it to allow another 12 months to get Sydney rolling again.

Cheers,
Michael
 
It definitely has a good design as I pointed out previously. Adding another bathroom will not a big deal, but the buyers will try to use it for bargaining. i am sure you will get what the house deserves. All the best with that.
 
Ed, what high voltage power lines? There aren't any anywhere near the property. I think one of the outlook photos might show some somewhere but that might be zoomed in.

correct, no high voltage lines. I must have had a few windows open at the time and wrongly attributed the lines to your place.
 
Yep, that has been one of the comments, but there is definately scope in the design and layout for another bathroom to be added off the stairwell opposite the fourth bedroom and directly below the existing bathroom. Its already fully enclosed as a room with rear access for storage so would just need fitout and a door knocked through.
l

Hi Micheal

You might just want to get the RE to change the current plan of the property as it doesn't show the storage room you refer to.

Showing the store room may at least get people thinking along the right lines.

Cheers
 
Im with Andy here. Ultimately a 4 bedroom home on a large block of land is likely to appeal to fanmily buyers and a family of say 4 would want more than 1 bathroom.

I would not be surprised if that is affecting your sale pretty significantly, id recommend making it as easy as possible for potential buyers to understand option of adding second bathroom.


Im curious, why did you build it with only 1 bathroom?
 
Thanks Andreas! Sounds like a good idea, I'll get onto it.

Sanj, when we bought the block of land it came with DA approved plans which we ran with. If we'd designed it we would have probably included a second bathroom somewhere. Its in Pittwater Council so DA approvals are hard to come by.

Cheers,
Michael
 
the realestate on the steep streets in NN often sit a while many have unusable land, difficult access and stormwater issues amongst other things. some are quite run down and need major maintenance, renovation however this one looks good hope you get a good $
 
Thanks mate.

Yeah, she's almost brand new and in great condition. But because its a battle-axe on the street side it takes a buyer that likes the separation from the road. Most have complained about the access as they're used to your drive up and park in the garage type house. This isn't one of those. You park at the street level and take the inclinator 40m up a 20 degree slope to the house. When you're up there its magic but the inclinator does turn some buyers off.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Sold

Sold!

And just when we'd just about given up. Quite amazing, I just posted the details in this post here in my other thread.

Got a great price that we're more than happy with but which is also a great buy for the purchaser. They've got grand plans to build more into that house, including the addition of the extra bathroom some have mentioned, and more rooms as well. They're lovely people and I really hope they enjoy living in that house for years to come. I think they plan on building a family as well as more rooms...

Great news for us too. Will give us the influx of cash to allow us to kick on with our Owner Build in Brisbane. We also let two of the three units in Mona Vale which will give us a heap of cash flow from April onwards as well.

What a weekend! And Sydney auction clearance rates were 75% odd too if my memory serves. The market is officially awake!

Cheers,
Michael
 
That's great news Michael - and even better that things have turned around. Sometimes particular years are just a bugger.

Are you going to rent the last unit or hold it as a Sydney bolthole?
 
Hi Lizzie,

We're going to hold all three of the Mona Vale units and rent them all out. Two of the three are rented now and the last one should rent pretty quickly.

Its our former PPOR in North Narrabeen that we sold just to release some equity to give us the cash to build our new PPOR in Brisbane without having to go to the banks. Our cash flow is still shot until the rents from Mona Vale start coming in, but when that happens we'll be able to start saving again to pay down some of our debt via offset accounts.

2012 was a really crappy year, but things are starting to turn up so far in 2013.

Thanks for the support!

Cheers,
Michael
 
Just went unconditional...

We popped some more bubbly last night when the 10% deposit cheque went in to the REA and the cooling off period lapsed. They're dead keen to settle quickly and so are we.

All coming together now. We've got our strata certificates with the bank right now for the 3 Mona Vale units. Once strata'd I'll be able to refinance them back to resi rates too. Sold the Narrabeen former PPOR 5 years into our 6 year moved-out period so no CGT. This discharges about $650K in debt and puts about $230K in our bank account after paying agent fees and fixed loan break fees (only 4 months left to run).

That will leave us with about $1.75M debt against our Mona Vale units worth about $2.7M. We've got another $300K debt on our new Bardon land which we can now develop with the $230K proceeds from the sale of the Narabeen PPOR. When done that house will be worth about $900K and have maybe $400K debt tops against it too ($230K won't be enough, might need another $100K).

We're CF+ on our Mona Vale units and have about $8K-$10K per month spare after all our investment and personal living expenses including private school fees of $1,500 a month. Our plan now is to use that surplus to pay down our debts aggressively in the next 24 months. If I could knock another $200K off our debt then we go even more CF+ and can ease up a bit.

Oh, and the new PPOR we're building in Bardon has an inbuilt granny flat on the bottom level which we'll rent out for another $400 odd a week.

Its been a tough journey and we're still living in a caravan in Bardon at present, about 18 months behind schedule, but its finally all coming together.

Thanks to all the great team at SS for their support along this epic journey.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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