Sydney Leads Prime Housing Price Growth Forecast

The average price of a luxury property in Sydney, Australia, is set to rise 10% this year, the biggest jump of any city included in Knight Frank’s prime residential price forecast, released Wednesday in the U.K.

Next year, Sydney is on track to share the top spot with London. Average prices in both cities are expected to jump 7% in 2022, according to Knight Frank. Although that’s a dip for Sydney prices, it marks a 5% increase for London, where 2021 prices are set to rise just 2%—the smallest uptick on the index.

Across the 11 cities considered, average prime prices are set to jump 4% in 2021, according to Knight Frank. That’s up from a 1% increase predicted by Knight Frank early in the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020, and a 3% rise in December 2020.

Government measures have helped protect economies, and cities are now on the rebound, according to Kate Everett-Allen, head of international residential research at Knight Frank.

“Government fiscal stimulus measures have been revised upward, protecting jobs and incomes via furlough schemes, meaning there have been few forced property sales,” she said in the report. “Banks in key developed markets offered mortgage holidays to customers reducing repossessions and foreclosures.”

In addition, the pandemic has inspired many buyers to relocate or expand their holdings.

“Households accrued a total of over US$5 trillion globally in savings during lockdown, enabling some homeowners to undertake home improvements,” Ms. Everett-Allen continued. “Others have opted to relocate, upsize, downsize or buy a second home/investment property.”

This year, Miami is predicted to have the second-highest growth in average prices, 6%, with a 4% bump in 2022, the data showed. Los Angeles and Hong Kong followed, both with 5% increases predicted for 2021 and 2022.

New York should see prices rise by 4% this year, which would be the first positive price growth since 2018 and its strongest performance since 2015, according to Knight Frank. In 2022, they are set to rise 3%.

And although average prices in Madrid are predicted to tick up 3% in 2021, they could rise 6% in 2022, the brokerage forecasted.

Potential headwinds that could stymie the market include slow vaccine rollouts and the unknown path of the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus, rising interest rates and government cooling measures, according to the report.

A 110-year-old Colorado estate that has hosted Frank Sinatra and Lyndon B. Johnson just slashed $10 million off its price tag.

The 12,000-square-foot manor house—with 25 rooms—and its five accessory dwelling in the alpines of Evergreen was relisted on Friday asking $16.8 million, down from its initial $26.8 million price in 2023.

The sellers, Richard and Pamela Bard, who paid $1.3 million for the “legacy property” named Greystone Estate in 1992, have shopped it around on and off for the past 20 years, according to agent Jessica Northrop at Compass Real Estate.

Richard Bard, CEO of his own private equity firm, has “hosted many corporate events and retreats where important business is discussed but they are also able to relax,” Northrop said. “Greystone has a special way of making people feel at ease.”

Bard said “it’s not a casual effort” to sell. He said it’s difficult to find a buyer with the facilities to “take care of it.”

The Bards intend to move closer to their children in Denver.

Before the Bards, Greystone Estate had several eras—as a summer house, a guest ranch and a business base—since it was built in 1915 by Genevieve Phipps, an industrialist’s daughter.

Phipps, who spent her inheritance on the land, built the 54-acre summer escape with the “elegance and feel of a fine Adirondack mansion combined with a mountain rustic style,” according to an online record of the estate’s history.

Its heyday, arguably in the 1940s to 1980s, saw Sinatra, Johnson and Groucho Marx come through its doors, when its owner William Sandifer, a socialite and one the Empire State Building’s architects, operated a guest ranch out of the place.

The Bards, who used a carriage house on the property as their company headquarters, completed Greystone’s full modernization in 1997. They also opened up the living and dining areas to receive more light, raised the ceiling on the upper level and combined several rooms to create a primary suite.

They replaced an outdoor pavilion and its helipad with something more suitable for their daughter’s wedding in 2001, according to Northrop.

The main 25-room manor includes a wine cellar, bar, gym and library.

The additional structures, which include a cottage, a log cabin, a pool house, a carriage house and a pavilion and guest house, surround the pool area and overlook acres of aspen groves and mountains.

Sydney Leads Prime Housing Price Growth Forecast

The city is expected to see prices rise 10% this year, according to Knight Frank research.

The 25-room mansion was built for an heiress and later belonged to a socialite and architect on the Empire State Building.