$6.36M Malabar family home secured before auction

The brief

The family knew what they wanted from the first meeting. A home that worked for them now and could keep working as the children grew up and the household changed shape.

The search focused on Maroubra and Malabar, with a preference for a turnkey home close to the beach that could be enjoyed from day one. The brief included:

• Four bedrooms upstairs
• A self-contained living area downstairs for extended family
• Secure parking
• Practical proportions for everyday family living
• A home requiring minimal immediate work

Like most of our owner-occupier clients, they started from lifestyle. The property still had to stack up as an asset.

Falling in love with Malabar

As we inspected homes together, something became clear. It was not Malabar in general they wanted. It was one particular part of it: the elevated houses looking out over the Pacific and the golf course beside it.

Homes that pull together an ocean outlook, golf course frontage and a walk to Little Bay Beach are among the tightest held in Malabar. You cannot recreate that anywhere else. A walk across the greens to the sand in the morning, the coastline in front of you, plenty of space and nobody looking in.

Once they had seen it, they knew what they wanted.

The strategy: understanding a very scarce asset

Their original budget was about $5 million. As we worked through the market it became apparent that homes with that particular combination of ocean outlook, golf frontage and position sat at the top end of Malabar.

We were not out to talk them into spending more. We wanted them to understand what they were looking at and how rarely it comes up.

Once they saw how seldom these houses trade, and how hard they are to replace, they decided to compete at that level. It was a decision made on the evidence, not on emotion.

Recognising genuine value

An expensive house is not automatically a good buy. Some are worth the asking price and some are not, and telling them apart is our job.

When this one came up we went through every recent premium freestanding sale in Malabar, comparing position, land, outlook, presentation and finish.

The answer was clear. Even at the top of the market, this house was good value against what had sold around it.

That gave our clients confidence, and it gave us the confidence to move.

Securing the property before auction

Letting the campaign run to auction would have put the result in the hands of whoever else turned up on the day. Instead we negotiated with the vendors and bought it beforehand.

In a coastal market this tight, preparation is what decides things. Knowing what a home is worth, recognising when one is priced well, and being ready to move on it. Those are usually what separates the family who gets the house from the family who reads about it later.

The home

The house sits on one of Malabar’s best coastal streets and covers everything our clients were after:

• A renovated freestanding home on 655sqm
• Five good sized bedrooms
• Generous family living areas
• Sweeping views across both the Pacific Ocean and the golf course
• Direct access onto the golf course itself
• A short walk through the greens to Little Bay Beach

Even in Malabar, houses like this come up once in a very long while.

More than a beautiful home

The best owner-occupier purchases do two jobs at once.

The first is obvious. The house has to work for how a family lives now and be able to bend a bit as that changes.

The second is what most buyers underweight: the fundamentals sitting under the price. Scarcity, a position nobody can copy, wide appeal to other owner-occupiers, and a suburb where more people want in than there are homes to sell.

You should not have to pick between the two. A good purchase gives you both.

The right home is somewhere you enjoy living, and it is also one of the steadier things your family will ever own.