The AFR would have you think so:
Even John McGrath was concerned that Sydney was too hot. In early 2014, positioning his hugely successful real estate business for a share market float, the handsome, driven salesman worried that if Sydney property prices continued their phenomenal increase, a traumatic fall would be more likely.”If we see another 15 per cent year-on-year growth, on top of the last 15 per cent, we might be in dangerous territory,” McGrath told an interviewer early that year.A year later, after watching Sydney prices jump 14 per cent, the Sydney celebrity real estate agent decided to cash in. He had missed out on a once-in-a-generation fortune once before. Not again. The high school failure wanted to get rich, according to former employees, business rivals and work contacts.Not regular rich, as in a Palm Beach holiday house and business class airfares to Paris. But Panama Papers, private jet rich. McGrath wanted to be able to buy a mansion on Wolseley Road, Point Piper, not just sell one.A year later, in a share market float, McGrath sold one third of his stake in the real estate agency that bears his name to clients of JP Morgan Chase and Bell Potter Securities. The initial public offering raised $130 million. McGrath, who received $37 million, triumphantly rang a bell at the Australian Securities Exchange to mark the start of trading under the ticker code MEA.
In a nod to common sense, investors were warned the number-one threat to McGrath shares was the Sydney property market, where the company did virtually all of its business.
