$3.5M freestanding house secured in Waverley

The brief

Every purchase we work on starts with understanding our clients’ goals and budget. Before we inspect anything, we sit down and check that what our clients expect matches what the market will actually give them at that price, in those suburbs, for that kind of home. It stops the search beginning with the wrong picture in everyone’s head.

A young family came to us wanting a semi-detached home somewhere in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, with $3.3 million to spend.

The brief was clear. A solid brick family home in one of the pockets that rarely turns over, somewhere good to live that would also hold its value. They wanted to be able to walk places, be near parks, and be in reach of good schools. They also wanted a home with something left to do, so they could improve it over the years and add value while they lived in it.

From there our job is simple: find the best home we can inside those limits.

Most of the time that is exactly what happens. Now and then the market throws up something that is worth a phone call first.

The strategy: an opportunity worth discussing

We inspected several good homes that met the brief. Then something unusual came up: a freestanding home over two levels in Waverley.

It was obvious on the first inspection that this one sat in a different category.

Everyone buying in the Eastern Suburbs knows what a freestanding house costs over a semi. Add parking, a private garden and ocean glimpses and the gap is usually well past $200,000.

This one was not priced as though it were.

We were not about to push them to spend more for the sake of it, so we laid it out plainly. An additional $200,000 would secure a freestanding home with features usually beyond their original budget.

The call was theirs. We gave them the figures, explained what it would mean ten and twenty years out, and left them to it. They looked at where they stood financially and decided to go ahead.

The home

We bought it for $3.5 million. It covers everything on the brief and then some:

• Three good sized bedrooms
• A second living area that can also serve as a home office
• Dual-level living with excellent separation of spaces
• Two bathrooms
• Off-street parking
• A private garden
• Ocean glimpses
• Walking distance to Bondi Junction and Queens Park

Most of all, it is a freestanding home in one of Sydney’s tightest suburbs, which is a rare thing to own and likely to stay that way.

Why scarcity matters

Scarcity is one of the biggest drivers of long-term capital growth.

You can always build more apartments and townhouses. You cannot build more freestanding houses in a suburb like Waverley, because there is nowhere left to put them. Demand keeps growing against a fixed supply, and homes like this one have held up well because of it.

That is why we thought it was worth raising with them. The extra money was not buying a bigger house so much as a rarer one.

Advice before emotion

A large part of this job is knowing when to tell a client to hold back and when to tell them something is genuinely worth stretching for.

Most purchases never need a client to rethink their budget. We would far rather help someone buy comfortably within their means than talk them into paying more.

But when something unusual comes up, it deserves to be looked at properly.

Sometimes the advice is to walk away. Sometimes it is to negotiate harder, or to hold the line on budget. Occasionally, when the numbers stack up, it is worth asking whether a small stretch today pays for itself several times over.

Here, one honest conversation got this family into a much better home, and one we think will keep serving them for a long time.