Real estate guru sells dream home at auction

31 Suttie Rd, Bellevue Hill sold for $11,115,000 at today’s on-site auction.

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Real estate veteran Michael Dunn sold the house that he “fell in love with” 37 years ago at auction today.

And given that the guide was $10m and the reserve was “around $11m”, he and wife Sandy were happy with the result.

The five-bedroom home at 31 Suttie Rd, Bellevue Hill fetched $11,115,000.

“They’re very happy,” said son James Dunn, who sold the home with his Richardson & Wrench Double Bay colleague Marion Badenoch.

The pair had four register and three active from $10m, with the bids rising in $100k, $50k, $25k and $10k increments.

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The reserve was “around $11m”.

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“It just goes to show the strength of the Bellevue Hill market and I don’t think it’s going to change,” said James.

He’d been showing the buyers, a local family, the “nooks and crannies, how to get to the park” since the gavel fell, with auctioneer Damien Cooley presiding. The underbidder was also a local family.

As Kirsten Craze wrote in her recent Wentworth Courier feature, Michael had already been in the real estate game for 10 years — and at the helm of Richardson and Wrench Double Bay for four — when he saw the property in 1987, so he knew a dream home when he saw one.

The home is “warm and inviting”.

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The four kids, including agent James Dunn, grew up in the house.

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“I fell in love with the house the moment I saw it,” Michael said.

“It’s always been a very warm and inviting house.

“I got that very feeling on first impression.”

They bought it for $480,000.

During the next 35 years, he and Sandy raised their four children there.

But now it’s time to move on.

“Now, as empty nesters, we want to scale down to something more manageable,” Michael told Craze.

“We’re also wanting to spend more time at our country place in the Yaramalong Valley.”