MORNINGTON PENINSULA

from Mansion February 2021

INTERIORS

JOEL ROBINSON

eRiding the wave

A perfect storm of factors has spurred a buying boom in the

Victorian holiday playground Every month was a record month last year on the Mornington Peninsula. That was the case in Peninsula Sotheby’s office, with principal Rob Curtain dismissing any suggestion of an extended break over Christmas. “There has been no break down here since April,” he said. In late December, Curtain’s office sold a two-bedroom timber shack on Balnarring Beach for $5.5 million. There was also a suburb record in McCrae and a quick sale in Sorrento, where a modern four-bedroom home sold 24 hours after going online and asking for offers in the mid-$4 millions. And just one week into the new year the agency broke its January sales tally. One of its bigticket sales was Amalfi, a Sorrento trophy that looks like it belongs in the Mediterranean. The six-bedroom, six-bathroom villa in 3035sq m of Paul Bangay gardens sold toward the top end of its $11.8 million to $13 million guide. “The COVID factor affecting travel has inventory levels at record lows and huge buyer demand on the Mornington Peninsula”, Curtain says. “Throw in cheap money and strong equity markets and it’s the perfect storm.” Kay & Burton Portsea agent Liz Jensen agrees. “Against all odds and pessimistic fears around COVID-19 and its macro and micro economic impact, 2020 became one of the greatest years for real estate transactions on the Mornington Peninsula,” she says. Kay & Burton agent Gerald Delany handled a whisper-quiet $25.5 million sale at Sorrento toward the end of last year. The clifftop property was sold by Just Jeans co-founders Roger and Christine Kimberley, with developer Michael Gannon its unconfirmed buyer. This year got off to an ambitious start with the listing of Horizon, a clifftop Flinders estate with $30 million expectations. Rob Curtain, who calls it the finest new home ever offered for sale on the peninsula, was responsible in 2017 for the sale of the Besen family’s Miramar, for $17 million. It was a concrete boomerang designed by Woods Marsh, with two curved wings connected in the middle. Curtain and colleague Danielle Vains are telling Horizon’s prospective buyers that the 6-star energy rated home was five years in the making on its 5060sq m holding with 100m of oceanfront. Monolithic on its cliff edge, the home was designed by architect Bruce Henderson with interiors by Mim Design, and built by local peninsula craftsmen Williams Group with extensive use of concrete and glass. With views across Bass Strait, the 2000sq m home sits off a cobblestone driveway amid coastal landscaping by Fiona Brockhoff and Heath Landscape. The floor plan was designed to allow zoned single-level living. The elevated first level has five ocean-view bedrooms, each with an ensuite, a central kitchen with its own scullery and three living spaces. A lift runs down to the lower level, where there’s a gym, sauna, cinema room, wine

Clockwise from top left: Kirwood Street, Blairgowrie, exterior and pool; Horizon at Flinders, and its interior; Amalfi in Portsea, and its garden

room, and a second kitchen that services an alfresco spa terrace where there’s a suspended 20-person spa. The terrace leads down to an 18m pool.

The project was undertaken by the luxury developer Brooke Starbuck, who was part of the syndicate that secured a larger holding from the family of Magpies legend Jock McHale.

Jensen senses that with overseas travel still way off, the trend of the local holiday home market will continue to see fresh buyers. She has secured the sale of a Portsea home on Wildcoast Road after asking between $8.85 million and $9.7 million. The luxury seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom home had more than 41,000 views on its realestate.com.au listing.

She and her colleague Lorna Duffy have listed a Blairgowrie home designed by architect Kerstin Thompson. The five-bedroom Kirwood Street home, set on 5260sq m amid Moonah trees, indigenous gardens and lawns, was designed in two wings to optimise natural light and cool summer breezes. One wing houses guests and children, the other has the master suite and the living areas. Connecting the two is a central breezeway and an indoor-outdoor room framed by sliding perforated steel doors. There’s a sixth bedroom in the pool house, which opens from its own deck to the pool.

Jensen and Duffy have a $4.5 million to $4.95 million guide on the Blairgowrie offering, which would set the suburb high following a recordbreaking $4.25 million sale of a 2019-built beach house last year.

Blairgowrie has 27 properties on the market, with recent sales putting its median house price as $1.09 million. Sorrento has 30 properties for sale with a $1.5 million median, according to realestate.com.au. Based on five years of sales, Sorrento has seen a compound growth rate of 12.2 per cent for houses. There are just two for sale at Flinders, where the median sits at $2.5 million, equal with Portsea, which has 19 listings. The busiest prestige patch right now is Mt Eliza, where there are 54 properties for sale. Based on five years of sales, Mt Eliza has seen a compound growth rate of 9.3 per cent for houses.

Such is the demand outside the capital that veteran RT Edgar Toorak agent Warwick Anderson has been busy down at the agency’s Mornington Peninsula office, which he says is seeing a major upturn in the market that he hasn’t witnessed for many years. He puts it down to pent-up demand since the lockdown ended, compounded by a shortage of supply, as people decide to live permanently on the Peninsula while keeping a townhouse in Melbourne.

The lockdowns didn’t put a dampener on Keating International, with principal Michael Keating saying that many of their sales are to buyers who rarely view properties personally anyway. He set the 2020 record when asking $40 million for Morningstar, which was dubbed the Downton Abbey of Australia. It was bought by Chemist Warehouse tycoon Mario Verrocchi.

Keating is expecting a bumper year of interest from buyers overseas, including the wide expat community. “This is to a degree pent-up, but we are anticipating a ‘flight to safety’ asset wise,” he says. “With record gold prices and increasing cryptocurrency exchange rates, 2021 is already looking like a year of great uncertainty, both economically and geopolitically, and smart money is already advanced in its plans. This means higher prices and strong international demand for premium Mornington Peninsula properties, which are seen as a very safe haven to protect your capital.”

Keating says buyers for high-end Mornington Peninsula properties come from all corners, but most local buyers come from the usual leafy inner-Melbourne suburbs. Rob Curtain estimates 50 per cent of his stock is selling to fresh buyers.

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