Albanese rents out his Copacabana investment property

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has succeeded in renting out his $4.3 million clifftop home on the NSW Central Coast after lowering the price, likely bringing in thousands a month for the four-bedroom property.

The latest register of interests reveals Albanese has listed the four-bedroom and three-bathroom property in Copacabana, called “clifftop perfection” by the real estate agent who sold it, as an investment property generating rental income.

Similar properties are currently on the rental market for about $1200 a week. Albanese and his fiancee Jodie Haydon initially attempted to rent the property for $1900 a week but reportedly dropped the asking price to $1500.

The rental was first listed in early November for $1500 per week, according to TenantApp. If rented at this price, Albanese would make $78,000 a year from the rental before tax.

The prime minister has not disclosed his actual rental income from the home, which would come on top of his $607,500 salary, but could go towards a mortgage with Commonwealth Bank that he has declared on the property.

The prime minister’s office declined to answer a question on whether the prime minister was negatively gearing the property.

“As always everything has been appropriately declared,” a spokesperson said.

Albanese’s decision to rent the property, which was disclosed in December and first reported by news.com.au, will put attention back on the prime minister’s judgment after his purchase concerned Labor MPs amid a cost-of-living crisis.

“Some people [within Labor] were aware and tried to stop it. My instinct is this is f---ing terrible,” one MP said at the time.

Albanese defended the purchase last year. “There are three generations of Haydon on the coast there and when your relationship changes, your life changes and you make decisions,” he said.

Another MP confirmed Albanese’s decision to buy the property was personal.

“The idea that [Haydon], someone from the Central Coast, wants to live where they grew up, that’s fair enough,” they said. “[But] it’s not a good look.”

In November last year, and just weeks after the purchase of the Central Coast home, Albanese sold his Dulwich Hill investment property in Sydney’s inner west for $1.75 million. The property was originally listed in September with an initial price of $1.9 million, but was then pulled from its October auction and had its asking price revised to $1.75 million.

The Dulwich Hill property had made headlines earlier last year when the then tenant, music venue owner Jim Flanagan, went public with his objections to being asked to vacate the property so it could be sold.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has long invested in properties and owned six in 2016. He has since sold most of them.

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