Home buyers hunt for piece of Victorian history

BUYERS are circling for their slice of history, paying top dollar for country homesteads.

Homestead

BUYERS looking for a place in history are driving a return to the market for some of Victoria's most unique country homesteads.

Agents are listing more historic properties, and seeing more interest, than any time in the past three years.

About six usually hit the market each year and typically sell to buyers who spend years hunting for their slice of history and pay top-dollar when they find it.

But a glut has built up thanks to global economic woes and buyers are now circling.

Ballarat homestead

Among the colonial-era relics on the market now is the stately "Ercildoune Homestead'', which has stood 30km west of Ballarat almost as long as the regional city which was established in 1837.

Graeme Riordan spent 15 years hunting for a historic homestead boasting views of Melbourne before he found the "Glencoe'' farm in South Gippsland.

Homestead

The Melbourne-based architect bought the 1860s built property from the same family who had owned it for the previous 150 years.

"You virtually have to get in line - there are a lot of people out there who are after them, and they aren't making any more,'' he said.

Raine and Horne sales agent Ken Grech is selling "Glencoe'' and said historic properties tend to grab a lot of interest and only rarely surface. 

Glencoe

Peter Hawkins, a director at Pat Rice Hawkins, has listings for a number of the rustic homesteads and said interest is on the up.

"It's been a tough market over the last three or four years,'' he said.

"(But) that might have turned around now, and the more enquiries there are the more confidence vendors have to put their property on the market.''

West of Melbourne, "Baranuh Plains'', a bluestone mansion and merino sheep run established in the 1830s near Geelong is also on the market for north of $4.5 million.

Ken Drysdale, Elders rural real estate manager for the Geelong area, said historic homes had hit seven on the property clock.

"It started to trade again in January, (since then) four historical properties within an hour of Geelong have sold,'' he said.

Even the Emu Bottom Homestead, built by the man who co-settled Melbourne George Evans in 1836 and now a popular wedding venue in Sunbury, is seeking a new long-term leasee.

Emu Bottom

Owner Hedley Elliott said after restoring the property and recreating a replica of the Enterprise, the ship that carried Evans to Melbourne, he and wife Jan are looking to wind back their involvement.

"We are looking for someone with a national brain to take over and take it to another level,'' he said.