Owner occupiers – $6.65m freestanding home in Bellevue Hill – ‘sometimes, it isn’t over even after contracts have exchanged’

Recently returned from the UK, our client, a senior executive with an investment bank and a lawyer by profession, retained us to find and buy a home in the eastern suburbs for his growing family. Of paramount importance was the requirement for the home to be secure and safe for young children and within easy driving distance of the City.

Immersing ourselves in all relevant criteria during numerous meetings with our client, his wife and children, we created a brief and designed a search focusing on Centennial Park, Woollahra, Double Bay, Vaucluse and Bellevue Hill.

Over the ensuing weeks and in a market where quality properties in this bracket were in short supply, we appraised 16 properties of which six were found off market. Those appraisals included lengthy consultations with architects and quantity surveyors.

As an indication of the time which can be saved by retaining Curtis Associates as a Sydney buyers’ agent, only two of those were shortlisted for serious consideration by our client and his wife.

One of those was a recently completed, free standing and master built residence in a blue ribbon location which, after protracted negotiations with the vendor’s solicitor husband, we purchased off market for $6.65 million.

Drawing upon our Principal’s legal background, we later devised and executed a strategy which successfully thwarted moves by the vendor, motivated we believed by remorse at the agreed price, to rescind the contract before settlement.

Applying the hindsight test™*

No comparable sale