Aussie John Symond: How the famous trophy home collector swapped humble cottages for epic mansions

Or maybe there was. By all accounts, Symond thought he’d won the lottery when, just six months after he bought the Alexandria cottage, he sold it for $15,500 to a builder from Ballina. It was Symond’s first house purchase, but not his first property foray in the then-slum neighbourhood in Sydney’s inner west.

As he recalls, during the late 1960s, he and fellow undergraduate John Cannon and other mates each bought a studio in a rundown block of apartments in Newtown. In the lift there was a sign that read: “Please do not urinate in the elevator”.