Alexander Phillips snaps up third property in Coolong Rd, Vaucluse, at controversial auction
Alexander Phillips and wife, Bridget, at the auction of 12 Coolong Rd, Vaucluse, on Saturday afternoon.
Leading agent Alexander Phillips snapped up his third property in Coolong Rd, Vaucluse, at a controversial auction on Saturday, beating an indecisive underbidder.
Phillips had bid $6.65m and the auctioneer, David Medina, had slammed down the gavel as his main opponent, with a mask over his mouth, yelled out “$6.7m”.
But it was too late. He’d already announced “I’m out” to the auctioneer; and the deal for 12 Coolong Rd was done. Phillips was shaking hands with both Medina and the sales agent, Sotheby’s principal Michael Pallier.
“I’m very happy — you can’t go wrong with Coolong Rd — it’s the best street in Australia!” Phillips told me, as he raced to sign the contract for the deceased estate of Elizabeth Dodds, a former kindergarten teacher at Cranbrook.
As is often the case amid talk of the property market cooling, the smart money was out buying.
MORE:
Multi-millionaire businessman buys dilapidated shop for $17.1m
The charming facade of the 1920s semi.
An aerial view of the property.
Phillips, the PPD Real Estate principal, who has plans plans for an $8m rebuild of his $11.1m mansion up the street, was probably always going to be Saturday’s buyer of the charming 1920s three-bedroom semi with wraparound balcony at No.12 Coolong Rd, with his wife, Bridget.
He’d already bought No.10 Coolong Rd for $5.5m in September, 2020.
Prices have moved on since then and Phillips reckoned he’d got a good deal on Saturday. “I think I paid too much back then,” he laughed. “This one evens it out!”
Pallier had four registered bidders with three active.
Medina had declared the property on the market at $6.2m, so it looks to have gone well over the reserve.
Phillips had made the opening bid of $4m, which Medina jokingly declared “very ambitious” and that he’d need to take out two of the three bedrooms and the parking at that price.
But then Phillips let it play out between the other parties — with the underbidder offering $4.025m and a bidder on the phone from London upping it to $5m.
The front balcony.
The dining room opens through glass doors to the back yard.
The underbidder offered $5.05m; the London bidder countered with $5.5m; the underbidder came back with $5.6m and called on the auctioneer to knock it down to him now saying: “I’ve gotta go — where are the keys?”
The London phone bidder came back with $5.7m to which the underbidder said: “That scares me — $5.8m — come on! [meaning he wanted the auctioneer to sell it to him at that price].”
The London bidder offered $6m; the underbidder said $6.1m; the London bidder came back with $6.15m and the underbidder replied with $6.2m.
Once it was “on the market”, Phillips was back in the game, offering $6.4m.
The knockout bid looked to have the desired effect. The underbidder shouted out: “Let him have it!”
The wraparound balcony.
The home has been freshly painted ahead of the sale — and is ready for a tenant.
But then he called out $6.5m. Phillips countered with $6.65m.
The underbidder again said: “Let him have it!”
Just to be sure, Medina checked again and the man said: “I’m out!”
Then, the gavel came down, as the underbidder, once again, had a change of heart.
After it was evident he’d missed out on the property, he raced off in a huff, but one of Elizabeth Dodds’s daughters, Kate, said she was happy with the result. “It’s done,” she said.
Property records show Elizabeth, who died last December, and her husband, Graeme Dodds, had bought it for $589,500 in 1993.
The rear yard at 12 Coolong Rd, Vaucluse.
Kate and her siblings had grown up in Olola Ave, Vaucluse, and her family had a 100-year-old association with the prestige suburb.
“It was a great place to grow up in — swimming in Nielson Park, close to schools and good friends,” she said.
Phillips is unlikely to lose on his Coolong Rd purchases. His most recent ones are right opposite the four blocks that the founder of Menulog, Leon Kamonov, bought for $80m in 2016. He’s currently building a $120m designer waterfront mansion.