Buyers pay top dollar for historic Toowoomba homestead

BUYERS have paid top dollar for one of Toowoomba's historic, heritage-listed homesteads.

The historic Weetwood homestead has sold. . Picture: Contributed

BUYERS have paid top dollar for one of Toowoomba's historic, heritage-listed homesteads. 

Weetwood, at 423-433 Tor St in Newtown, sold this month for $1.542 million. 

The property first went to market in October 2018 and had five offers over the course of the campaign, according to Webster Cavanagh's Andrew Webster. 

423-433 Tor St, Newtown

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"And in the end it came down to a multi-offer - there were two offers on the property at the same time," he said. 

"We eventually agreed upon the price that you can see there (in the property records)."

Mr Webster said the purchasers intended to continue using the homestead as a residence. 

"Everyone who came through it was looking at it as a residence, except for two groups who were looking at making it a functions venue," he said.

The villa was built in 1888 for Richard William Scholefield, who served as a Justice of the Peace and was a distinguished member of various clubs, including the Downs Club and the Toowoomba Turf Club. 

"Weetwood" at 423-433 Tor St, Newtown, has sold. . Picture: Contributed

The home was designed by James Marks and built by Robert Godsall, both of whom had previously worked together on the construction of St Patrick's Cathedral. 

The property had more than 30 inspections, and a big segment of the people who were interested in it were retiring farmers looking to move to the Garden City. 

Mr Webster said the new owners were from out of town, but had plenty of ties to Toowoomba. 

"Towards the end we had a little bit of a flurry of inquiry," he said.

"I guess there wasn't a lot of those high-end properties for sale on the market and so people were inquiring... we had everything from people in Sydney looking to relocate with family here, to high-wealth individuals moving here for work from overseas, as well as those from Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, as well as local interest." 

Mr Webster said currently the real estate market in Toowoomba was a seller's market.

"We're going into a phase where there's still plenty of buyers around and there's not much stock on the market," he said.

"Most agents had a reasonable pipeline that were to come on after Easter, but obviously unless they had to sell, a lot of them have chosen to sit back and wait and see what happens before committing to a marketing campaign and doing the whole sales process.

"There are plenty of buyers, but not a lot of stock. It's probably not a bad time to go to market with your property while you haven't got a lot of competing stock." 

Looking further afield, Mr Webster the lifestyle property market was starting to move again with a lot of older stock going to contract, while in the rural market within 100-150kms of Toowomba, there was a "massive shortage of stock". 

"There was one place, a dryland farming block north of Dalby that sold for a record price per acre," he said.

"It's fantastic to see that interest and that sort of result gives the rural market a lot of confidence that there's still plenty of buyers around." 

Originally published as Buyers pay top dollar for historic Toowoomba homestead