‘My dream home’: Buyer pays $4.5 million for his childhood beach house

Key points

• A man whose parents rented a Mona Vale beach cottage when he was a child has bought the house at auction for $4.5 million. The three-bedroom home at 78 Surfview Road sold under the hammer after the buyer's early offers were rejected.
• The buyer said he had huge memories of the house and called it his dream home. In Bronte, an oceanfront home at 522-524 Bronte Road sold for $25.2 million to an owner-occupier.
• Preliminary data showed a Sydney auction clearance rate of 52 per cent for the week.