Clearing house: Albanese sells investment property after parliamentary sprint
The PM sets his house in order, offloading his Sydney investment property in the same week he’s trumpeted a tidal wave of legislation passed into law.
Scoring himself a clean slate ahead of an election year, Anthony Albanese followed up his mammoth legislative efforts in the final parliamentary sitting week by offloading his Dulwich Hill investment property, albeit with concessions.
On Friday night, the Prime Minister’s three-bedroom semi-detached home was listed online as sold for $1.75 million, taking a $150,000 cut on the $1.9 million floated when a buyer was first sought for the property.
Mr Albanese experienced the turbulence of Sydney’s backslide on inner-city and Inner West property prices, finally seeking a $1.85 million sale after pulling it from the auction process.
The additional concession to $1.75 million still marks a tidy profit on his 2015 purchase for $1.175 million, leaving him $575,000 in the clear disregarding any mortgage costs and property taxes accrued. It does fall behind median price rises for the area however, which stood 92.8 per cent higher in the near-decade passed with a median of $2.28 million.
The sale was arranged by The Agency co-founder Shad Hassen, a specialist in Inner West realty, and coincides with a week in which Labor did some house clearing on legislative burdens in a flurry of guillotine motions, tying up what may be its final sitting week before the election by ramming through more than 30 pieces of legislation.
Mr Albanese has previously said he sold the Dulwich Hill property in an effort to simplify his assets ahead of his marriage to fiancee Jodie Haydon, following the sale of a Canberra apartment and Marrickville property and purchase of a Central Coast seafront home.
His former tenant, local business owner Jim Flanagan, was arguably the most vocal critic of the PM’s move, after he faced eviction from the rental at which he still enjoyed Covid discounted rent rates.
Mr Flanagan, who owns the nearby restaurant and music venue Lazy Thinking, called the eviction hypocritical given the Albanese government’s spruiking of its efforts in affordable housing and renters rights.
Initially leasing for $880 per week in 2020 when he moved in, Mr Flanagan saw his rent dropped to $680 during the pandemic, with Mr Albanese deeming not to raise it back.
Since Mr Flanagan’s eviction in May, the property has sat empty.
His eviction did not mark the end of the PM’s political housing woes, after the purchase of his $4.3 Copacabana villa sparked uproar among Australians frustrated with the housing crisis, and among his own backbench.
Upon the purchase clearing in October, he was forced to justify the opulent purchase.
“Of course, I am much better off as prime minister, I earn a good income, I understand that,” he said at a press conference.
“I also know what it is like to struggle. My mum lived in the one public housing (flat) that she was born in for all of her 65 years.”
The PM currently resides between the Lodge in Canberra and Kirribilli House in Sydney.
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