A young family weighing up Botany against the Sutherland Shire secured a brand-new four-bedroom duplex with a pool in the heart of Gymea for $2,030,000, after a four-week negotiation and a few near misses along the way.
The Clients
These clients came to me at a crossroads. A young couple with a small child, they were living in a townhouse in Botany and trying to work out two big questions at once. Should they buy or sell first? And could they afford a house near where they already lived, or would they move to the Shire, get a better house on a bigger block, tick every box and start a new life somewhere else?
There were a lot of moving parts, and a lot to weigh up.
With the market softening in 2026, they made a smart first decision. They listed their Botany townhouse, locked in their sale price and negotiated a long settlement, with a view to buying in the meantime and lining up their settlements. They formally engaged me just as the townhouse sold, which meant we knew exactly what their purchasing power was from day one.
Two Briefs, Run in Parallel
Very rarely do I take on parallel briefs for the same client. But in this case I understood that my clients needed to properly rule out Botany before they could commit to leaving it. So we ran both at once.
If they stayed in Botany, the property needed to be:
A freestanding three-bedroom house, with no strata
Ready to move into, with no appetite to renovate
On the residential side of Botany, well away from the industrial pocket
If they moved to the Shire, the dream was bigger:
Gymea or Caringbah, walking distance to the train
A nice quiet residential street
A four-bedroom house that really didn’t need any work
A swimming pool, which was their absolute dream
Once we had worked through Botany and confirmed it wasn’t going to deliver something good enough to keep them in the area, we narrowed our focus to finding the right property in the Shire.
The Search
This was one of the most challenging searches I have done, because we were navigating several external factors at once:
A looming settlement on their townhouse. I was never going to buy the wrong property just to beat the clock, but we had a deadline to work within.
Incredibly low stock levels following the federal budget in May 2026. There was very little to choose from, even off-market.
Rising interest rates and impacts to the clients borrowing power
A tight budget for their requirements. A new four-bedroom home with a pool in Gymea or Caringbah does not come cheap, and very rarely sells under $2,050,000
The Near Misses
Property one: a five-year-old duplex in Gymea.
I found this one pre-market, not long after we started looking, and my clients inspected it once it launched. Being five years old, it had worked through its initial teething issues, and it was being sold by the original builder. We ended up in a bidding war with one other party. My clients could have stretched a little further, but I was conscious that if they were going to pay more, they could likely buy something brand new rather than five years old. So we let it go.
Property two: a new-build duplex in Kirrawee.
This one had some build quality challenges and sat on a slightly busier road, and Kirrawee wasn’t my clients’ preferred location. We made an offer below what it was really worth, on the off chance the vendor (again, the builder) would accept. They didn’t, and we walked away. It wasn’t the right home for them, so that was a good outcome.
Then came a few quiet weeks of finding nothing. A classic scenario.
And then, within a couple of weeks of each other, three properties came up that we seriously considered. One I pursued pre-market, but another buyer came in early with an offer above my clients’ budget, so we moved on.
Property three: a five-year-old duplex on Jellicoe Street, Caringbah South.
We put in a pre-auction offer, which wasn’t accepted. Another buyer then offered higher, and that wasn’t accepted either. In my view, the vendor should have taken the other offer, because that was what the property was worth. But the vendor had higher expectations and took it to auction.
My clients liked the property and were in a position to register, so we went along. But we walked in as the underbidder from the pre-auction negotiations, and the property itself had been let go by the owners over the five years they had owned it. It came down to us and one other party, who was represented by another buyer’s agent. They bought it for $2,030,000. I assessed it as worth around $2,010,000, so we were happy to let it go.
I found out afterwards that the winning buyer had a very strong need to be in that exact location, for mobility reasons and to be close to family. Sometimes another buyer simply needs a property more than you do, and that’s okay.
The Property
Here is the best part of missing out at that auction.
Throughout all of this, I had been negotiating on a brand-new four-bedroom duplex in Gymea that my clients loved. It had been on the market for six or seven weeks. The price guide had started at $2,200,000, dropped to $2,100,000, then to $2,050,000, before it was relisted with a ‘For sale’ range of $2,050,000 to $2,150,000.
Brand new, four bedrooms
A gorgeous swimming pool out the back
In the heart of Gymea, a five-minute walk to the station and the shopping village
We had already done the building report and were comfortable with what it found. And from day one, I had been clear with the sales agent: my clients loved the property, but they couldn’t pay what the vendor was asking and didn’t see value at that number.
The Negotiation
The Jellicoe Street auction turned out to be our best piece of leverage.
By attending and stopping bidding at a known figure, my clients had shown exactly where their ceiling was. I was able to go back to the agent and say, honestly: if we had more money, we would have used it at that auction. We didn’t. We’re not bluffing.
There was another factor working in our favour. Through my conversations with the agent during the negotiation, I learned the builder had done a joint venture with the original landowner. That meant the builder was under real pressure to sell, with no option to hold the property and rent it out. You would never know that from the listing alone.
After a four-week negotiation, our offer was accepted the night after the Caringbah South auction. We bought it for $2,030,000.
Price wasn’t the only win. I also negotiated:
A special condition requiring the builder to fix every defect listed in the building report before settlement
A cooling-off period, which is critical on a brand-new property, because banks will always send their own valuer rather than rely on the contract price. I was confident the valuation would stack up, but my clients deserved peace of mind that their finance was secure.
A three-week settlement, so the family could be in well before Christmas
The Outcome
My clients now own a stunning brand-new duplex with the pool they had always dreamed of, in the part of the Shire they wanted most. A property that ticked all their boxes.
The settlements didn’t line up perfectly, and the family moved into a rental in between. But in the scheme of the whole deal, that rental gave them the certainty to move forward on their own terms, and a tight three-week settlement means they will be unpacked and settled in their new home before Christmas.
Why Patience Pays Off
This purchase took a few near misses, and every one of them made the final deal stronger. Missing out on Gymea taught us to hold out for brand new. Walking away from Kirrawee kept us focused on the right location. And losing Jellicoe Street gave us the leverage to secure the property my clients actually wanted, at the price they were prepared to pay.
When you are working with a tight budget for your requirements, you need to be prepared for a few properties to fall through before you are successful. The key is knowing which ones to let go.
