If you’ve ever wanted to be neighbours with outgoing Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour, now’s your chance: a late 19th-century Victorian home is on the market around the corner from the nation’s chief postie.
Known as Cymbeline and built around 1878, the five-bedroom residence at 31 Shakespeare Grove in Melbourne’s leafy Hawthorn is for sale and is expected to reap between $6 million and $6.5m.
Originally designed by Melbourne architects Tappin Gilbert and Dennehy, the mansion — whose vendors declined to be named — includes a library and formal and casual living space, plus private gardens.
And the high-end market in the area around the inner-eastern suburbs of Hawthorn and Kew is forging ahead, according to Sam Wilkinson, a partner in the Kay & Burton Hawthorn office.
Mr Wilkinson has an auction coming up for another residence in Kooyongkoot Road, Hawthorn, with expectations around $8m, and sold a number of homes above $5m late last year.
“In the Hawthorn and Kew family homes market, there’s certainly more comfort from buyers now in investing over $5m in a property, where it was probably previously Toorak (that) was considered the prestige centrepoint,” Mr Wilkinson said. “If you’re looking at local families, some of them may be living within the district already in smaller homes and they’re ready to upgrade.”
The average house price in Hawthorn hit $1.98m last year, up 46 per cent in only two years, according to data from realestate.com.au. Kew’s average house price rose 19 per cent in the same period to $2.19m.
“The strength at the start of the year in auction clearance rates and results across the board was all being reported very positively and we were seeing a number of properties going to auction and selling comfortably over reserve,” Mr Wilkinson said.
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