Sydney Inner Suburbs Endure Sharp House Price Drops

House prices in some of Sydney’s inner suburbs have lost, in some cases, more than $190,000 in the past three months to February as the market slowdown steepens with poor affordability, tighter lending and higher fixed interest rates according to the latest CoreLogic data.

The Sydney suburb of Beaconsfield, nearby the city’s airport, posted a 9.2% drop in median house values to $1.77 million, the largest percentage decline recorded in any house market in the country. Prices in Beaconsfield are now $162,662 lower than three months ago.

Elsewhere, Newtown saw values fall by 6.6% or $120,207 down to $1.821 million, Surry Hills is down 6.1% to $134,054 to $2.197 and Birchgrove lost 6% or $190,581 to 3.176 million.

According to CoreLogic’s head of research, Eliza Owen, the premium end was more volatile compared to the lower end.

“I think affordability constraints, tighter lending conditions and higher fixed rates have likely been enough to cool premium markets, and the sharpness of the fall relates to the volatility in the high end of the market, and the extremely strong run up in price growth,” she said.

Away from Sydney’s market, Melbourne has seen its own market cooling with house prices in Prahran, Cremorne, South Yarra and Windsor tumbling by more than 5% while Toorak dipped 4.7% during the same period.

According to Ms Owen, the affordable end of the market would continue to outperform the upper end as the broader market begins to slow.

“Based on historical performance of property values, I think the next 12 months should see more steady performance in affordable segments of Sydney and Melbourne,” she said.

“More affordable segments tend to have less volatility in growth rates – the highs are not as high, but the lows are not as low,” she said.

Many luxury hotels only build on their gilded reputations with each passing decade. But others are less fortunate. Here are five long-gone grandes dames that fell from grace—and one that persists, but in a significantly diminished form.

The Proto-Marmont |

The Garden of Allah, Los Angeles

A magnet for celebrities, the Garden of Allah was once the scene-making equivalent of today’s Chateau Marmont. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner’s affair allegedly started there and Humphrey Bogart lived in one of its bungalows for a time.

Crimean expat Alla Nazimova leased a grand home in Hollywood after World War I, but soon turned it into a hotel, where she prioritised glamorous clientele. Others risked being ejected by guards and a fearsome dog dubbed the Hound of the Baskervilles. Demolished in the 1950s, the site’s now a parking lot.

The Failed Follow-Up |

Hotel Astor, New York City

The Astor family hoped to repeat their success when they opened this sequel to their megahit Waldorf Astoria hotel in 1904. It became an anchor of the nascent Theater District, buzzy (and naughty) enough to inspire Cole Porter to write in “High Society”: “Have you heard that Mimsie Starr…got pinched in the Astor Bar?”

That bar soon gained another reputation. “Gentlemen who preferred the company of other gentlemen would meet in a certain section of the bar,” said travel expert Henry Harteveldt of consulting firm Atmosphere Research. By the 1960s, the hotel had lost its lustre and was demolished; the 54-storey One Astor Plaza skyscraper was built in its place.

The Island Playground |

Santa Carolina Hotel, Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique

In the 1950s, colonial officers around Africa treated Mozambique as an off-duty playground. They flocked, in particular, to the Santa Carolina, a five-star hotel on a gorgeous archipelago off the country’s southern coast.

Run by a Portuguese businessman and his wife, the resort included an airstrip that ferried visitors in and out. Ask locals why the place was eventually reduced to rubble, and some whisper that the couple were cursed—and that’s why no one wanted to take over when the business collapsed in the ’70s. Today, seeing the abandoned, crumbled ruins and murals bleached by the sun, it’s hard to dismiss their superstitions entirely.

The Tourism Gimmick |

Bali Hai Raiatea, French Polynesia

The overwater bungalow, a shorthand for barefoot luxury around the world, began in French Polynesia—but not with the locals. Instead, it was a marketing gimmick cooked up by a trio of rascally Americans. They moved to French Polynesia in the late 1950s, and soon tried to capitalise on the newly built international airport and a looming tourism boom.

That proved difficult because their five-room hotel on the island of Raiatea lacked a beach. They devised a fix: building rooms on pontoons above the water. They were an instant phenomenon, spreading around the islands and the world—per fan site OverwaterBungalows.net , there are now more than 9,000 worldwide, from the Maldives to Mexico. That first property, though, is no more.

The New England Holdout |

Poland Springs Resort, Poland, Maine

The Ricker family started out as innkeepers, running a stagecoach stop in Maine in the 1790s. When Hiram Ricker took over the operation, the family expanded into the business by which it would make its fortune: water. Thanks to savvy marketing, by the 1870s, doctors were prescribing Poland Spring mineral water and die-hards were making pilgrimages to the source.

The Rickers opened the Poland Spring House in 1876, and eventually expanded it to include one of the earliest resort-based golf courses in the country, a barber shop, dance studio and music hall. By the turn of the century, it was among the most glamorous resort complexes in New England.

Mismanagement eventually forced its sale in 1962, and both the water operation and hospitality holdings went through several owners and operators. While the water venture retains its prominence, the hotel has weathered less well, becoming a pleasant—but far from luxurious—mid-market resort. Former NYU hospitality professor Bjorn Hanson says attempts at upgrading over the decades have been futile. “I was a consultant to a developer in the 1970s to return the resort to its ‘former glory,’ but it never happened.”