Vaucluse home sold for $38 million by Chinese billionaire after not living in it for seven years

A trophy home in one of Sydney’s most expensive suburbs is hitting the market at an incredible price after sitting out of use for seven years.

Werribee’s property in Vaucluse was bought by Chinese food mogul Sun Shao Feng for $20 million in 2016.

Seven years later, the property is back on the market for $38 million despite apparently no one living in the house during its ownership.

The CEO and founder of one of China’s leading agricultural producers, China Green Holding, Shao Feng bought the 3,330-square-meter trophy home during a frenzy of Asian investors buying similar mansions in the area.

Neither the house nor the neighboring carriage house have been used since Shao Feng bought the property from the late Cementaid founder Peter Aldred, who bought it for a record price for a Sydney house of £41,000 in 1961.

The grounds of the 1914 house have been recently maintained prior to listing.

While the home has been vacant or maintained for seven years, it comes with approved plans for a new 10-bedroom residence behind the heritage-listed façade.

Sydney’s prime property market exploded at the time of the acquisition of Mr. Shao Feng, topped off by businessman Chau Chak Wing who bought James Packer’s Vaucluse mansion for a record $70 million.

Billionaire Huang Bingwen’s family bought the nearby Point Piper, Altona, mansion for $61.8 million, while Richard Liu, an e-commerce billionaire, bought a nearby home for $36 million.

The 3,300-square-meter property, built in 1914, was bought during a frenzy of Asian investors buying trophy homes in the area and is due to go on the market Monday.

Starting out as a bureaucrat in the Fuzhou City Government Office, Mr. Shao Feng founded his agricultural product export empire in 1998.

He would then sell the company’s beverage subsidiary to Coca-Cola for $400 million 17 years later, just before buying the Vaucluse property.

The $18 million price increase over seven years is greater than the average home price increase in the Vaucluse over the same time period.

However, Shao Feng’s rise is unprecedented, as gold mining businessman John Li’s Vaucluse property sold for $16.9 million after he had paid $10.9 million less than two years before.

The house is expected to hit the market on Monday.