“We don’t have enough stock to satisfy clients waiting to purchase their escape out of the city.”
4 min
Deborah Cullen has worked her way through the real estate industry, from boutique agencies and corporate heavy-hitters, to selling Sydney’s finest homes.
However, through 2020’s pandemic, Cullen saw an opportunity to specialise her skillset, partnering with Richard Royle to open a boutique (and luxurious) agency with a renewed focus on rural estates and coastal escapes away from the capital cities.
We caught up to discuss the capital city exodus of COVID and how the second-home market continues to play out.
Kanebridge News: I guess we’ll start at the beginning of your property career – you were a Personal Trainer before, why property?
Deborah Cullen: Fitness and real estate are passions for me. Firstly, real estate – for me it was a love of renovating and styling that made me fall in love with properties. I used to go to inspections, view beautiful homes and get ideas for what current trends were for my own family and future homes.
Working as a fitness coach is all about communication and care, all easily transferrable skills into selling property I think.
KN: In 2020 you launched a new boutique agency – Cullen Royle – what was the catalyst there? What makes it different?
DC: After starting and heading up a prestige team within a large corporate business I saw the opportunity in a COVID affected market to provide a very personalised boutique service and one that focused on family and lifestyle properties rather than one that concentrated on volume and transactions. I
Working together with my business partner Richard Royle, who also came from large corporate background in rural and agribusiness, our work is based on personal referrals and repeat business. We have seen an incredible amount of business come our way since starting Cullen Royle and we feel very honoured and blessed to look after our clients most important and valuable property assets.
KN: How is it different selling a rural estate to a waterfront Sydney mansion?
DC: They both can be emotional purchases. Country lifestyle estates are usually driven by family desires to getaway and be together. Waterfront homes are wonderful estates to represent as we see a huge response from our expat database – but they also usually include the added check list of requirements such as best schools, transport, shopping, entertainment etc. So, it needs to work on many more levels to be a perfect fit.
KN: What about your personal preference, rural or coastal?
DC: That is a tough one but luckily I get to spend time at both for my clients. It is very common for our clients to have a city base, country estate and beach house. I really enjoy the coast myself, but I have to say, wintertime in the country with the fireplaces lit and the glass of red is very hard to beat.
KN: How noticeable was the shift away from the cities to regional pockets of Australia?
DC: It was and still is an amazing shift that gained momentum very quickly. Country and coastal homes were always popular but then when the COVID experience hit us, the desire to be away in nature and fresh air everyday escalated to a new level. It is still there, we don’t have enough stock to satisfy clients waiting to purchase their escape out of the city.”
KN: Are prestige buyers still looking to move out of the cities permanently, or is the market returning to those looking for a 2nd home? What’s the split like?
DC: It is very definitely still a split lifestyle between a city base and lifestyle retreat. What we have seen is the city base become the smaller home and the coastal or country home be a larger investment. Those who are moving permanently are doing so to be with family or making it a definite business relocation. Most of our clients want the flexibility to still stay in the city when needed so have a foot in both camps.
KN: What regional areas do you think are growing with popularity now, and which do you see as having potential over the next few years?
DC: We have seen areas come back to life again that are still an easy drive to big cities. In particular the Hunter Region is now a strong lifestyle draw and has the inclusion of tourism and entertainment on its doorstep. The other area is the South Coast of Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Mudgee regions which continues to draw those from the city out. There is a tremendous amount of luxury stays and farm getaways in these areas that are making people consider these regions as options.
KN: What of the prestige property market as a whole – is it to continue to be as safe and as in demand as ever?
DC: The resilience of the Sydney prestige market in particular has shown continually to be a sound investment. It really comes down to the amount of quality properties being available in blue ribbon areas. Sydneysiders are driven by the desire to be near the harbour and beaches plus have a stunning country retreat. These quality estates will always attract a discerning audience to assess. We see this continuing for the foreseeable future for sure.
KN: What do you make of the trend of downsizers or rightsizers? Do you think that will continue to grow and perhaps lessen the appeal of a sprawling country estate or coastal home in the future?
DC: Rightsizing is all about finding the right home for a particular time in your life. At the moment, we are seeing an abundance of clients purchasing estates to have the opportunity to share and gather for celebrations and to create precious memories. I don’t think that will change for a while with COVID still being an influence in our lives.
In 2021, luxury estate purchases are now about the experience shared together as a family and the options of where they can do this? Well, that, can be anywhere now. So let us at Cullen Royle do the hunting and find it for you.
What a quarter-million dollars gets you in the western capital.
Alexandre de Betak and his wife are focusing on their most personal project yet.
3 min
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.
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 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.
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 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 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.”
