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Victoria Square penthouse tops Footscray home price record
Nathan Mawby
07 FEB 2020
Move over Franco Cozzo, there’s a new big deal in Footscray.
A $2.65 million penthouse sale at the Victoria Square development has smashed the suburb’s home price record — and it won’t even be built until later this year.
It’s a more than $500,000 lift on the suburb’s previous high water mark: a six-bedroom house that sold for $2.11 million in 2015.
It comes as Knight Frank this week released a report indicating “rightsizers” — downsizers seeking house-sized luxury apartments — would be among the major real estate trends observed in the coming years.
The buyer, from Melbourne’s northern suburbs, is a businessman attached to the construction industry and asked to combine two quarter-floor apartments to create the multimillion-dollar behemoth.
He made the move well before the developer, Growland, had been planning to sell the penthouse apartments — with no details or images of the planned homes yet available.
Nick, the buyer, who declined to provide a surname, said he and his wife were downsizing.
“My wife and I are at a stage in our lives where we’re ready to downsize, but we will want some space,” he said.
“Quite frankly, I’m at the point where I’m tired of lawn mowing and garden trimming. I’d prefer to concentrate on living, not garden chores, so I am really looking forward to developing some new habits such as cafe hopping, and trying out different restaurants.”
It is understood he has also purchased a number of apartments in the city’s west for his children to move to, and sees Melbourne’s western suburbs as a future growth hub.
When completed, the luxury penthouse at Victoria Square will span 223sq m, with a further 200sq m of balcony space, and will be built on the 27th floor of the $600 million development.
It will have panoramic views over the Maribyrnong River, Flemington Racecourse, the bay and Melbourne’s CBD skyline.
Nick said they had also appreciated the development’s planned Olympic-sized aerial outdoor running track, in-house cinema, pool and gym.
A further two quarter-floor penthouses are expected to be opened up to buyers later this year, with the buyer making the big offer for the top address months before the developer had planned to open them to the market.
Victoria Square’s first tower, VS01, is already under construction and slated for completion by the end of this year.
Growland chief executive Ronald Chan said in addition to breaking the suburb record, he believed it was the highest price paid for a penthouse west of Melbourne’s CBD, revealing the high price would work out to about $11,888 a square metre.
Mr Chan said he expected the next 12 months would see many Melbourne developments outside the CBD geared towards downsizers.
“We believe it is still an owner-occupier market, and particularly for the local purchasers who are downsizing,” Mr Chan said.
“And this is a trend for Melbourne for at least another one or two years, except for the CBD which is still a strong investor market.”
He estimated most affluent downsizers would be searching for apartments up to 150sq m.
The top-end sale coincides with the release of Knight Frank’s Rightsizing – Australian Prime Residential Insight 2020 report earlier this week.
The report indicates growing demand for luxury apartments with similar interior spaces to the houses downsizers are leaving behind.
It indicates that downsizers, as well as older families, and even well-heeled young professionals were seeking such homes.
Hocking Stuart Yarraville director Leo Dardha said the previous record home price in Footscray, a six-bedroom house at 63 Ballarat Rd, Footscray had come from a “freak” auction result.
“There were bids jumping up by $100,000 at the time,” Mr Dardha said.
“In 15 years in my career I have never seen anything like that.”
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