Australia’s most expensive home sold for $142m

Australia’s priciest home has just sold for $142m and the new owner paid in cash. Check it out. Picture: Lendlease

With no registered mortgage required, Chinese-born company director Yan Zhang paid $141.55m last week for Australia’s most expensive penthouse overlooking Sydney Harbour at Barangaroo.

Zhang now owns the top three floors of the One Sydney Harbour development, ending some of the mystery since its off-the-plan exchange in 2019 by Lendlease.

The strata fees for the 1980sq m holding will be sky-high because the two-level penthouse has 4794 of the 100,000 unit entitlements and the secondary apartment has 2109.

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The view from One Sydney Harbour.

The Sell’s quick back-of-an envelope calculation puts the combined quarterly strata at a staggering $107,000 given the building’s $6.2m annual levies.

Little is known about 37-year-old Zhang, who recently set up shelf company Yry Family Pty Ltd, which gives its address as the 88/88 Barangaroo Ave penthouse.

Zhang directs only one other company, Zicheng Australia, which was set up in 2007 and co-directed with Wei Ling Zhang, 63, who was born in Shanghai, China.

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At $142m, it is Australia’s most expensive home.

And one of its best.

The strata fees are more than $400k a year.

The lobby of One Sydney Harbour, developed by Renzo Piano and Lendlease. Picture: Supplied

Both have given their address as the 52-floor Pitt St, Century Tower sub-penthouse that they bought mortgage-free for $1.33m in 2004 when Zhang was just 16.

It was a good buy because it had previously sold for $1,443,000 in 1997.

Lendlease will be hoping their One Sydney Harbour prices do not fall back.

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One Sydney Harbour sits next to Crown Sydney (far right).

In 2019 on its exchange, it was reported the mystery buyer of the three-level penthouse was a local Australian resident from mainland China so there no pesky Foreign Investment Review Board requirements.

Construction of the 89-storey Renzo Piano-designed tower was initially scheduled for a late 2023 completion, with Lendlease registering the slightly-delayed strata plan in February last year.

The highest previously registered purchase had been $38.95m to the Zhong family for the entire 76th floor that settled seamlessly in May last year.

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