Prestige coastal homes on the Mornington Peninsula are surging in popularity
The shock of spending so much time at home and the likelihood that overseas leisure travel is off the cards is driving a boom not seen in decades.
Holiday houses and lifestyle change properties are well and truly back on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, with activity at the top end of the market stretching from Flinders to Portsea.
The traditional holiday boltholes on both Port Phillip and Western Port bays that are the usual summer playgrounds of Melbourne have taken on a new popularity in the wake of the city’s coronavirus lockdowns.
While some people decamped to holiday homes to wait out Melbourne’s stage four lockdown, the shock of spending so much time at home and the likelihood that overseas leisure travel is off the cards has driven a surge in these markets.
Veteran Melbourne buyer’s agent David Morrell says price rises are running at about 10-20 per cent above pre-crisis levels.
THE LIST: AUSTRALIA’S TOP 30 MANSIONS
He is seeing activity right across the upper end, ranging from classic holiday homes in the $3m to $4m bracket to clifftop mansions that will approach $30m at the height of this summer’s mansion market.
“It’s like the 1980s all over again,” he says, referring to the area’s original boom for premium holiday homes.
This time could be even more lasting as buyers are chasing both weekenders and homes that provide an option to live in for longer.
Morrell has been buying homes, and even blocks of land, that sold for close to $3m in March that are now being dealt on at around $4.5m.
“The driver is definitely COVID; people are realising they might be living here,” he said. “Money is cheap and, also, what’s happened is people are saying let’s enjoy the money.”
Morrell says there is a depth in the market that wasn’t evident pre-COVID. At the very top end there are also offers being made on clifftop homes in Sorrento.
In one of the largest plays, several parties are vying to buy the mansion that Roger Kimberley, brother of Just Jeans founder Craig, has quietly put on the market.
The house may reap up to $25m and is being handled by Mornington Peninsula property doyen Gerald Delany of Kay & Burton.
He would not discuss the offer but he is selling Blair House on Point Nepean Road, that has been billed as a signature home on the Portsea side of Sorrento village.
The home, opposite Point King, has a price guide of $4.6m-$5m, with the stylish five-bedroom home considered good value in the rising market.
Sotheby’s is also marketing a dream home on Jamieson Court at Cape Schanck on the Moonah Estate for $4.2m-$4.6m. The mansion is one for the sports-minded with the prestigious National Golf Club next door and the home overlooking the 17th fairway of the RACV Cape Schanck resort. The market is also moving in other classic peninsula areas, including Mount Martha and Flinders where agents are conducting private inspections that often last all of Saturday.
There are even properties that are being offered at the once unthinkable level of $30m in Flinders. “There’s activity there and it’s bounced out a lot quicker than expected,” Mr Morrell said.
Kay and Burton’s Tom Barr Smith says there’s a strong sense of buyers wanting to get out of the city as a result of lockdown.
“They’ve worked out they can work where they want to and it’s only an hour back to Melbourne if they have to go,” he said.
Mr Barr Smith is dealing with buyers who did not expect to own a second home but wanted the option for family and entertaining friends. “There is definitely pressure because of COVID,” he said.
He expects the market will trade on through summer with perhaps an abbreviated break for Christmas.
His offerings include a Musk Creek Road property with a price range of $7.3m-$8m, with the four-bedroom home designed by Russell Barrett Architects on a spectacular and private 11 acres (4.5ha), with landscaped gardens designed by award-winning Jim Fogarty and views through to Phillip Island.
The bespoke modern country home, approached by a tree-lined driveway, has drawn strong interest from families, and it also sports a terrace overlooking the property’s impressive chardonnay vineyard.
With “home” the main holiday destination this summer the savvy top end buyers are looking to scoop up properties that will have a life well beyond the crisis.
