This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
A MANSION in a prized street within Melbourne’s most expensive suburb has sold for a price in the early $20 millions – after its price was slashed by more than $5 million.
Five-bedroom “Halstead” at 12 Lansell Road in Toorak was put to the market early in the year with hopes for $27 million to $29 million. It has taken nearly all of 2024 to find a buyer, with the dramatic price cut enabling a deal to go through at between $22 million and $24 million, according to an REA Group report.
Mysterious vendor Jiandong Wang had purchased the home 10 years ago for $12.5 million, records show.
Not much is known about Wang, who maintains a very private life as well as a low business profile.
Kay & Burton’s Gowan Stubbings managed the sale.
Halstead was designed in 1916 in the Arts and Craft-style by Melbourne architect Walter Butler for Francis Clements, who was then chairman of the Victorian State Electricity Commission.
It had been acquired in the 1990s by billionaire and founder of ASX-listed funds management and fintech firm Netwealth, Michael Heine.
Punctuated by wood panelling and French doors throughout, Halstead sits on a large 3,286 sqm block and features a cellar, four car garage, pool and theatre.
Toorak in recent months has seen Melbourne’s famous Myer retailing family list two mansions for sale within just a few weeks of each other – including the long-held Cranlana, which could be the first home ever in Melbourne to trade for at least $100 million.
Held in the family since its acquisition by family patriarch Sidney Myer and his second wife Merlyn in 1921, the newly-listed Edwardian mansion at 62-62A Clendon Road can be configured in up to eight bedrooms, features a tennis court and a pool, and is on a block that at more than 1.1 hectares is one of the biggest in the blue-ribbon suburb.
That listing was quickly followed by the Regency-style family home of late businessman and philanthropist Baillieu Myer and his wife Sarah, on offer with price expectations between $20 million and $22 million.
The Melbourne house price record was set in Toorak two years ago, with cryptocurrency casino billionaire Ed Craven’s $80,000,088 purchase of the 29-31 St Georges Road home that had sat vacant for more than 30 years.
Halstead is the latest Toorak mansion to sell at the bottom of or below the asking price range.
Earlier this year Toorak saw the sale of late billionaire David Hains’ 10-bedroom Georgian Revival mansion at 35-39 Albany Road for around $40 million. That sale came in near the bottom end of the asking price range and more than a year after it was first listed at the beginning of 2023, shortly after the death of racehorse owner Hains who left an estimated fortune of around $2.9 billion.
That sale landed soon after businessman David Prior sold his Toorak mansion at 14 St Georges Road for $40 million – which had been listed with a $46 million to $50 million asking range.
More than half of prestige home valuers expect price growth over the next 12 months, although the biggest gains are likely to be seen in Western Australia, South Australia and NSW. Melbourne is set for modest price growth.
Perth’s heated residential market recently recorded the highest price growth in the Australia’s luxury sphere, according to Knight Frank, outpacing the global average as affordability limits were reached and slowed down the market.
