Revealed: Australia’s most expensive houses & the records they’re smashing
Records keep falling in 2025 as harbourfront, beachfront and blue-chip estates crowd the top of the market.
5 min
Australia’s luxury property market is once again reaching dizzying heights. After a brief slowdown, national home values have surged to new records in 2025, and nowhere is that more evident than at the top end of town.
While median prices are rising across most capital cities, the ultra-prestige segment is seeing even sharper growth, with trophy homes fetching never-before-seen sums.
Demand for harbourfront, beachfront, and blue-chip inner-city estates remains intense, driven by a mix of local billionaires, global buyers and intergenerational wealth.
This year alone, Australia’s residential record has been rewritten, with sales surpassing $130 million, and even an apartment now holding the crown as the nation’s most expensive dwelling.
From Sydney’s Point Piper to Melbourne’s Toorak, Brisbane’s riverfronts to Perth’s Golden Triangle, these exclusive enclaves continue to define the country’s property elite.
We’ve taken a closer look at the most expensive houses across Australia’s largest capitals, the landmark sales that have set new benchmarks, and the homes that could challenge those records if they ever hit the market.
Sydney
House Price Record: $130 million
Residential Record: $141.5 million
Sydney’s harbour has always commanded the city’s highest price points, with Point Piper the main epicentre.
For years, the residential house price record was held in Point Piper. First, Atlassian billionaire Scott Farquhar spent a record $71 million on Elaine, the Seven Shillings beachfront estate that had been in the Fairfax family for generations.
That 2017 sale held the top spot until the following year, when Farquhar’s Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes spent $100 million on Fairwater next door, following the death of Lady Mary Fairfax.
The grand heritage-listed mansion dates back to the early 1880s and sits on 1.12 hectares, far larger than Elaine, which is just shy of 7,000 sqm.
The Fairwater sale has only been topped twice. Last year, Farquhar purchased Uig Lodge for $130 million, one of the highest homes in Point Piper, with sweeping views of the harbour.
In turn, he sold Elaine for the same amount to a consortium led by tech entrepreneur Patrick Shi, CEO of Acce Investments Group. The group reportedly intends to subdivide the 7,000 sqm parcel into four blocks for new trophy homes.
There are several harbourfront properties that could challenge the record should they ever transact. This year, Aussie John Symond reportedly turned down offers exceeding $200 million for his home, colloquially known as “Aussie Stadium.”
The four-level residence, one of only three on Wolseley Road’s Windmill Point, took eight years to build and features six bedrooms, an eight-car garage, a 22-seat theatre, and a 2,500-bottle wine cellar.
Another contender is the Vaucluse waterfront compound owned by Menulog founder Leon Kamenev. Kamenev spent $80 million on the land alone in 2016, four amalgamated blocks totalling 4,200 sqm, before demolishing the existing homes to create a mega-mansion that cost more than $30 million to construct.
Meriton founder Harry Triguboff’s Wentworth Road property, also in Vaucluse, would likely compete for top spot. He first bought a block on the prized waterfront street in 1983 and acquired the adjacent property in 1998 to create over 5,200 sqm.
The Packer family compound could return the record to Bellevue Hill if it ever sold. Sir Frank Packer began assembling the estate, Cairnton, in 1935; his son Kerry added further titles through the 1980s and 1990s. The property now spans 1.1 hectares across Kambala and Victoria Roads.
The aforementioned Fairwater would almost certainly exceed $130 million today, given its larger harbourside footprint compared to Elaine.
Sydney’s highest property price, however, isn’t a house, it’s a penthouse. The One Sydney Harbour penthouse in Barangaroo sold off the plan in 2019 for $141.55 million. The three-level residence spans over 1,600 sqm and includes nine bedrooms, a private rooftop pool, spa, and gym.
Melbourne
House Price Record: $130 million+
In Melbourne, Toorak is the equivalent of Point Piper. The rich-lister suburb home to the nation’s highest concentration of billionaires, including Lindsay Fox, John Gandel, and Solomon Lew.
The highest price achieved, though yet to settle, is for Coonac, the 1867-built mansion reportedly sold earlier this year for around $130 million. It was the longtime home of billionaire developer Paul Little and his wife, University of Melbourne Chancellor Jane Hansen.
While Coonac sits on Clendon Road, alongside the Myer family’s Cranlana compound, currently seeking around $100 million, Toorak’s most consistently expensive street is St Georges Road.
It previously held the Victorian record when crypto billionaire Ed Craven bought the long-abandoned “Ghost Mansion” for $80 million in 2022. He has since demolished the structure and is set to build a new luxury residence on the vast 7,187 sqm site.
Other notable St Georges Road sales include Blair House, which fetched $74.5 million in 2022 when purchased by tech entrepreneur Grant Rule.
Outside Toorak, billionaire Anthony Pratt’s Raheen estate in Kew remains one of the state’s most valuable homes. The heritage-listed Italianate mansion, built in the 1870s for Edward Latham of Carlton Brewery, has been in the Pratt family since 1981 and was recently refurbished by Anthony following his father Richard’s passing in 2016.
Brisbane
House Price Record: $23 million
The Brisbane record was set earlier this year when BWC Group construction boss Brett Walker sold his Ascot home for $23 million.
Walker had bought the 1930s Queenslander from Ray White Chairman Brian White in 2021 for $10 million and spent another $7 million on extensive upgrades.
The 1920s home with six bedrooms sits on a private 3,035 sqm block with a championship-size floodlit tennis court, swimming pool, and cricket pitch.
The sale comfortably surpassed the previous record, set in 2023 when the 1890s waterfront Amity House in New Farm sold for $20.5 million.
New Farm also holds the city’s apartment record, set this year when coal baron Matthew Latimore, founder of M Resources, spent $17.5 million on a two-level penthouse atop the Cutters Landing building on Refinery Parade. The 740 sqm residence includes a sauna, steam room, ice bath, and spa.
There had been suggestions the penthouse atop the Pier building in Newstead would sell for $20 million, but it ultimately settled for $16 million.
Queensland’s priciest homes, however, sit beyond Brisbane. The state record was set earlier this year when DISSH fashion owners Lucy Henry-Hicks and Mitchell Lau purchased three adjoining beachfront properties for $40 million on Palm Beach’s Jefferson Lane.
Some don’t consider it a record, given it was an amalgamation. If it wasn’t to be a record, the highest price is $34 million, in Sunshine Beach. Webb House was bought by Peter Tighe, Non-Executive Chairman of AuKing Mining and part-owner of champion mare Winx, in 2021.
Western Australia
House Price Record: $56 million
Western Australia’s luxury market has surged. According to Knight Frank’s Prime Global Cities Index, Perth ranked 16th globally in Q1 2025 for luxury property price growth, rising 3.8 per cent over the year to March.
The priciest homes typically cluster in Dalkeith, Mosman Park, and Peppermint Grove. The state’s record was set when Mineral Resources co-founder Chris Ellison purchased a Mosman Park residence on Saunders Street for $56 million.
That same street saw another notable sale this year, a 2016-built luxury home with dual Gaggenau and Sub-Zero kitchens, a solar-heated magnesium pool, 600-bottle wine cellar, 13-person lift, and panoramic river views, for $22.75 million.
Many of Perth’s top-end sales occurred in the post-GFC mining boom, though some values later softened.
In 2011, Mineral Resources co-founder Steve Wyatt paid $39 million for a Dalkeith mansion; it resold in 2020 for $27.5 million to entrepreneur Danny Pavlovich and his wife, Suza.
For Central Element, the start of work at Pearl represents another step in the company’s growing eastern suburbs pipeline.
All three vehicles will form part of a broader charitable initiative benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the American Red Cross and Starlight Children’s Foundation
Jack Freeman believes the most compelling interiors are not decorated, but collected. The FREEMAN & CO founder creates layered, personal spaces shaped by art, travel and craftsmanship.
4 min
For Jack Freeman, a compelling interior should not look as though it was completed in a single shopping trip.
The founder and designer behind FREEMAN & CO prefers rooms that develop through art, travel, commissioned furniture and objects collected over time. It is an approach that treats the home less as a decorative project and more as an evolving portrait of its owner.
“I am a true believer in collecting versus decorating,” Freeman says.
That distinction underpins the international practice he has built across private residences, hotels, property developments, yachts and private aviation. Its projects stretch from Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay and Toorak to Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean.
Although the locations and architecture vary considerably, the work is connected by a restrained design language. Natural stone, warm timbers and sculptural furniture establish the foundation, while art, bespoke lighting and individual objects give each interior its identity.
The objective is not to overwhelm a room with obvious symbols of expense. It is to create an environment that feels calm, layered and particular to the people living within it.
“The greatest luxury isn’t about excess,” Freeman says. “It’s about creating an oasis where you come home and feel immediately grounded — effortlessly chic and deeply personal.”
Collecting instead of decorating
Decorating can imply the completion of a room: selecting the required furniture, filling the available walls and producing a coherent finished image.
Collecting is less conclusive.
A collected interior has room to change as its owners travel, discover artists, inherit pieces or reassess how they use their home. Its character comes from the relationship between objects rather than adherence to a single brand or season.
That does not mean placing unrelated pieces together without discipline. The designer must understand scale, proportion, material and provenance well enough to create a dialogue between them.
A contemporary artwork might sit beside a historic piece of furniture. A precisely detailed new interior may be interrupted by an irregular object made by hand. Smooth stone can be balanced by timber, textiles or a patinated metal surface that becomes richer with age.
The tension between those elements is part of the appeal.
For Freeman, art is not an accessory to be added once the furniture plan is complete. It forms part of the architecture and atmosphere of the room from the beginning.
Lighting is considered in the same way. Beyond its practical purpose, a bespoke fitting can operate as a suspended sculpture, changing both the room’s composition and the way its materials are experienced after dark.
A design perspective shaped by travel
International travel plays a significant role in Freeman’s creative process.
Design fairs such as PAD Paris and Salone del Mobile in Milan provide opportunities to encounter emerging designers, established galleries, new materials and collectible furniture away from the filter of social media.
More spontaneous discoveries can prove equally important.
“Sometimes it’s the simple things,” Freeman says. “That piece found on a shopping trip with a client in Paris, stumbling across an artisan’s workshop, or a special memory that forms the narrative of the story.”
Objects selected during travel bring more than visual interest into a home. They carry an association with a place, maker or experience, giving the client a connection that cannot be reproduced by ordering an entire interior from a catalogue.
Freeman’s influences are international, but his projects are not conceived as replicas of Parisian, Milanese or Californian style. Each commission responds to its architecture, setting, natural light and the daily lives of its occupants.
A waterfront Sydney residence demands a different treatment from a Mayfair townhouse. A Caribbean estate shaped by brutalist architecture and reflecting pools calls for another response again.
The designer’s role is to absorb those references without allowing them to overwhelm the individual qualities of the property.
Designing the complete experience
FREEMAN & CO extends beyond conventional interior decoration.
The practice’s stated services include interior design and architecture, project management, property acquisition, development advice, concept design, documentation, furniture and lighting design, procurement and art curation.
That breadth allows the team to become involved before a room’s dimensions and finishes are fixed.
Early participation can be important at the top end of the residential market, where architecture, landscape, interiors, technology and art must operate as one environment. Decisions about ceiling heights, wall dimensions, sightlines and lighting can directly affect where art is installed or how custom furniture is proportioned.
The practice can then carry those decisions through to procurement and final installation, maintaining the design narrative as a project moves between architects, builders, specialist craftspeople, dealers and suppliers.
Its residential portfolio includes a South Coast retreat conceived as an escape from urban life, a Caribbean estate with reflecting pools, an East Coast-inspired Palm Beach residence and a Mayfair townhouse organised around an expressive drawing room.
The studio also says it has worked on highly tailored Sydney residences with values exceeding $100 million, although the private nature of such commissions means individual addresses and clients are not always disclosed.
A home that can keep changing
The risk in creating a perfectly resolved interior is that it can become too static — a composition that looks exceptional in photographs but leaves little room for life.
Freeman sees the home as something that should evolve with its owners.
“I love the evolution of design,” he says. “We are talking about people’s lives, and as they evolve, so too should their private sanctuaries.”
That evolution might involve adding art, reupholstering a significant piece, adapting rooms as a family changes or making space for objects gathered through future travels.
The original design needs to be strong enough to accommodate those layers.
This may be the clearest expression of Freeman’s approach to luxury. It is not simply access to rare stone, collectible furniture or commissioned craftsmanship. It is the creation of a personal environment whose meaning deepens rather than diminishes with time.
Fact box
- Designer: Jack Freeman
- Role: Founder and managing director
- Practice: FREEMAN & CO
- Base: Australia, with international projects
- Project locations named by the practice: Point Piper, Vaucluse, Circular Quay, Toorak, Palm Beach, the NSW South Coast, Mayfair, Bel Air and the Caribbean
- Sectors: Private residences, hotels, residential developments, private aviation and superyachts
- Services: Interior design and architecture, property development, project management, property acquisition, documentation, furniture and lighting design, FF&E procurement, interior dressing and art curation
- Design philosophy: Collected, personal interiors shaped by art, craftsmanship, travel and enduring materials
- Website: free-man.co
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