Plotting past prime ministerial purchases
Anthony Albanese and fiancee Jodie Haydon’s $4.3m purchase has copped some heat but history shows the PM is far from the first in the nation’s top office to spend big on property.
Amid the ever evolving optics, the federal election outcome and then possibly the caucus will probably resolve just how consequential Anthony Albanese and fiancee Jodie Haydon’s $4.3m Copacabana purchase will be in the timing of taking up their clifftop residency.
Despite the ignorance from ABC Insiders host David Speers on Sunday, there have been past significant confluences when prime ministerial tenure was undermined by private property assignations.
The most pivotal was when Bob Hawke and then wife Hazel quietly bought on Middle Harbour in Sydney in 1991, some eight years into the top job.
It was amid the dramatic push by then treasurer Paul Keating to get the keys to the Lodge.
Within a week of his unsuccessful early June caucus vote, the Canberra Times reported the Hawkes had listed their Deakin home for $325,000, having bought something on the water on Sydney’s north shore.
Their late May purchase had gone unpublished, but had been rumoured in the corridors of power during Keating’s leadership challenge.
Hawke’s office was subsequently at pains that there were no retirement intentions arising from the $1.23m Northbridge purchase as it was “an investment”.
There was little opprobrium, with it mostly coming from voters in Hawke’s Wills electorate in Melbourne, parochially outraged that the purchase was in Sydney.
The ongoing recession was the backdrop, with Hawke gone by December 1991, finding temporary rental digs at adman John Singleton’s Birchgrove townhouse before a long stay at the Double Bay Ritz Carlton while construction got under way at Northbridge.
Prime minister Keating’s $2.2m St Kevin’s, Woollahra house purchase in 1994 saw rampant class-ridden media coverage. Michael Gordon, the then national political editor for The Australian, wrote that Keating “had joined the ranks of politicians from working-class backgrounds who have dragged themselves up by the boot straps to own homes in dress circle suburbs far removed from the playgrounds of their youth.”
St Kevin’s briefly became Keating’s home with then wife Annita after he lost the 1996 election.
The pre-2007 election renovations to the Wollstonecraft house of his successor, John Howard, prompted press speculation that Howard actually saw the writing on the wall, for an election loss-taking return to the home bought for $54,000 in 1974 with wife Janette.
Australia’s wealthiest prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who will celebrate his 70th birthday midweek with friends at the New York apartment of his wife Lucy, made no property moves during his term.
Of course, Turnbull endured the memorable moniker Mr Harbourside Mansion, initiated by commentator Peta Credlin, after remaining in residence at his Point Piper trophy home and allegedly absent from western Sydney electorates.
The Central Park West, New York apartment amalgamation, bought in 2012 and 2013 in part from the Gershwin musical family, was where he initially retreated after his eviction from the Lodge in 2018.
$12.5m Strathfield deal
A $12.5m Strathfield home sale topped the weekend deals in a pre-auction outcome. McGrath’s Tarun Sethi advised it was a record price reveal for the Sydney suburb.
It was sold by the Tartak family, whose wealth is derived from waste giant Bingo Industries.
Camilla Tartak, wife of Daniel Tartak, who oversaw its 2017 float on the ASX, had set an earlier price record when she bought the eight-bedroom mansion from Sushi Hub co-founder Raymond Chen for $10.78m in 2021.
The initial price guidance had been $10.5m-$11m for the 2460sq m Woodside Avenue offering.
Slated for a knockdown rebuild, the listing attracted 5867 page views on realestate.com.au during its marketing.
Downsizing Hunters Hill vendors secured the top under the hammer Saturday result when $8.66m was secured for their Woolwich Road offering when it sold to a local family.
The four-bedroom, four-bathroom property had a $7.5m guidance and $8m reserve.
Three of the five registered bidders participated after the $7m opening bid.
CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless noted Sydney returned a 70 per cent preliminary success rate, its highest in five weeks.
Adelaide’s 72 per cent was its strongest in three weeks. Melbourne’s 69 per cent was its highest in six weeks.
The weekly national preliminary auction clearance rate edged higher to 67 per cent, from 66 per cent, which was revised to 60 per cent on final numbers.
Harbourfront pass-in
The harbourfront Kirribilli home of Denis Cubis, who played for the North Sydney Bears in the 1960s, and wife Beryl was passed in at its weekend auction attracting a sole $10m bid.
Local agent Nigel Mukhi had a $12.5m guide for the two-storey Elamang Avenue abode.
The four-bedroom Moorings apartment, which comes with marina berth, cost $1.6m in 1995.
The complex was among the last of the projects of the Aust-Wide Group that once dominated the prestige lower North Shore market.
Aust-Wide, which began in the 1980s as an unlisted property trust manager, got to manage $1.8bn across 10 different trusts, with 25 per cent returns on offer by the late 1980s, before its collapse.
Canterbury tops list
Melbourne’s top weekend result was at Canterbury, when $7.35m was paid for the five-bedroom, four-bathroom French provincial-style residence by designer Phillip Mannerheim boasting a mansard slate roof.
Set behind wrought iron gates, amid a parterre garden, the 18 Alexandra Avenue offering had come with $5.95m-$6.5m guidance. The guidance was enthusiastically exceeded, with buyers agent Mal James noting five bidders.
There was no sale at nearby 25 Chaucer Crescent, a restored four-bedroom, two-bathroom Federation residence on a 1236sq m parcel.
Gold Coast leads way
The highest advised Queensland sale was on the Gold Coast, with a Paradise Waters, Surfers Paradise home selling for $4.3m under the hammer.
Robbie Graham from Ray White Prestige had five registered bidders, all locals.
The 82 Admiralty Drive canalfront home was marketed as a knockdown, with “rock star homes for neighbours”.
It last sold in 2012 for $2.3m.
Two prestige Noosa auctions did not result in sales.
The listing at 10 Noosa Parade, Noosa Heads now has a $24m asking price through Nic Hunter at Tom Offermann Real Estate. It’s a 2013 Stephen Kidd-design home with interiors by Carole Tretheway.
Dixon’s horse play
The 120ha Macedon Lodge at Mt Macedon has been listed with $30m-plus hopes by Bruce Dixon, the former Spotless Group chief executive, through Nick Myer and Henry Mackinnon from Elders.
The pub baron has secured new permits for 120 horse boxes, which he suggests will be best in the hands of a horse person.
It was bought just two years ago from legendary Melbourne Cup winner Lloyd Williams, who ran it as a private training facility.
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