‘Sydney’ author Louis Nowra’s Art Deco apartment with $700k guide set to appeal to first-home buyers

News Corp Australia Network

14/224 William St, Wooloomooloo, has a very appealing price guide.

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Writer Louis Nowra, who has a new book out called Sydney, is selling the Art Deco flat he bought for $295,000 two decades ago to move in with his award-winning novelist wife.

Nowra and Mandy Sayers, who has also just released a new book called Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, have been together 23 years but have never lived together.

“We decided that now might be the time to live together, so I shifted into her apartment in Darlinghurst and decided to sell my apartment,” Nowra says.

The cute 55sqm third-floor one-bedder at 14/224 William St Woolloomooloo with Harbour Bridge cameos is likely to appeal to a first-home buyer, Ray White Elizabeth Bay agent Nuri Shik believes, with its still relatively affordable $700,000 price guide for a February 18 auction.

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Louis Nowra and Mandy Sayers, on the rooftop of the apartment soon after Nowra bought it.

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The sunroom, where Nowra wrote his books and famous plays.

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“It will be popular, being over 50sqm, so most banks will lend money on it,” says Shik, who sold the apartment to Nowra in 2002 and to the two previous owners.

“It’s got a common rooftop entertainment space and sunroom, so people can live there and work from home.

“It’s also a handy spot for leasing, because you can walk straight down the street into the city.”

He says it should achieve $550 per week in rent.

Meanwhile, Nowra says the charm of the 1929-built boutique block won him over two decades ago.

Being 55sqm, most first-home buyers should be able to secure finance with a reasonable deposit.

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Harbour Bridge cameos.

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“It just had character and atmosphere, and over time the residents have either shifted or died and we’ve had younger groups moving in,” he said.

“When I wrote the book Kings Cross, I included a whole chapter on this apartment block, with its character and characters.”

Apart from Kings Cross, Nowra, 72, also wrote Woolloomooloo.

His just-released 500-page book Sydney, the last to have been written in the apartment, has been described as a “big, bustling portrait of Sydney” told through profiles of criminals, premiers, ordinary people, entertainers, artists, writers, thieves and visionairies.

The common rooftop.

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City views from the apartment.

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He’s best known as a leading playwright, with Cosi and Radiance turned into films. His 2009 novel Ice was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award.

Sayers’ book about the McDonagh sisters is set between 1926 and 1933. The sisters were the first women in Australia to form their own film production company.