Malouf is arguably Chippendale's most notable resident, despite living a very private life behind the grand facade of the Victorian terrace he bought in 1985 for $175,000.

The sales campaign offers a rare glimpse of the home and study where Malouf wrote some of his greatest works, with french doors opening to the leafy Myrtle Street address and his typewriter in pride of place and not a laptop or Wi-Fi connection in sight.

Malouf, 83, has tapped out about 20 books, short story collections, poetry collections, non-fiction essays, a play and several operatic libretti since he bought his inner city home, including the 1994 Booker Prize shortlisted Remembering Babylon and Every Move You Make, which won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for an Australian short story collection in 2007.

The three-level terrace still with its largely original footprint has been owned solely in Malouf's name for the past 32 years, and is his second Sydney property. He bought a Cremorne Point apartment in 1974 for $47,000 when he was a lecturer at Sydney University, and sold it 20 years later for $410,000.

An October 28 auction has been set for his Chippendale home, with a guide of $2.2 million by Edward Burns, of LJ Hooker Newtown.

Malouf is expected to move to Brisbane to live with his sister, antique dealer Jill Phillips, until his Central Park apartment is completed in coming years.

Seaforth's $13 million high

The northern beaches trophy market had a busy week with a spate of top-end sales, headed by the almost $13 million sale of the Seaforth home of smash repairer Keith Burrow and his wife Jenny.

McGrath's Michael Coombs declined to confirm the widely rumoured sale result, which topped the previous high of $10 million set by a non-waterfront double block residence in 2015.

Sources say a North Shore buyer is rumoured to have secured the David Naylor Architects-designed waterfront residence only a month after it was listed.

Also toasting the local market is coal industry supremo Malcolm MacLennan and his wife Kim Turner who sold their Avalon waterfront home on Stokes Point.

Lachlan Elder, of LJ Hooker Mona Vale, was gagged from revealing the price, tipped by local sources as sold to an eastern suburbs family as their holiday home for about $14 million but with a Pricefinder sales notification of $12,995,000.

The MacLennans have meanwhile settled into a recently purchased $9.75 million waterfront home in Balgowlah Heights.

Finally, records show Glenn Botha, owner of Thompson Controls electrical engineering firm, has off-loaded his Bayview home for $10.8 million in an off-market deal to chinese buyers Yingluo Wang and Yaqin Wang.

Noel Nicholson, of Ray White Palm Beach, is widely tipped to have negotiated the deal on a protracted settlement for the landmark house with its sunken loungeroom and views to Scotland Island.

Botha bought it already complete in 2013 for $6.5 million from mini golf businessman Tom Wykoff.