Prestige Property: 2 Lomond Place, Castle Hill, NSW
This luxurious pile hopes to break the suburb record.
2 min
Perched on an elevated position, this three-level, 7-bedroom, 6-bathroom, 5-car bedroom home in Sydney’s Castle Hill captures district views of the famously leafy locale and hopes to break the current suburb record when it goes to auction on December 18.
Located in one of the suburbs most prestigious streets comes a magnificent double-brick masterpiece offering modern grandeur and endless luxury across an impressive 2000sqm block.
Within the home sees grand proportions throughout, further emphasised by the broad tiles used underfoot and the elegant bulkhead detailing above. These modern details combine with the wrought iron staircase to lift the eye and create a sense of space and drama in the home’s foyer.
Beyond the entrance, replete with chandeliers, the home sees palatial formal living and dining areas alongside an open plan living and dining space.
It’s here that the gourmet kitchen, replete with Miele and Smeg appliances, forms the focal point of the home. The ground level sees a secondary kitchen – that acts as a butler’s pantry – complete with a full suite of appliances.
Elsewhere, the home boasts a billiards room, study and home cinema.
Upstairs sees the accommodation, including the 7.4 x 7.9-metre master bedroom, complete with a walk-in-robe and ensuite – the latter adorned with marble details.
The remaining bedrooms all see walk-in robes or built-in robes as well as balcony access for each room.
Outside, the home is privy to a large entertaining area with travertine tiling.
Here, one finds the impressive in-ground pool and shaded lounging area alongside the floodlit championship-sized tennis court and basketball court, making the home ideal for entertaining.
The lower ground level plays host to the five-car garage and guest accommodation, complete with bathroom, kitchenette and separate entrance.
The home is listed with Merc Real Estate’s Mechlenne Douaihy (+61 434 548 435) with an auction set for December 18. Price guide $5.8 million; mercrealestate.com.au
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
This may be contributing to continually rising weekly rents
2 min
There has been a substantial increase in the number of Australians earning high incomes who are renting their homes instead of owning them, and this may be another element contributing to higher market demand and continually rising rents, according to new research.
The portion of households with an annual income of $140,000 per year (in 2021 dollars), went from 8 percent of the private rental market in 1996 to 24 percent in 2021, according to research by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI). The AHURI study highlights that longer-term declines in the rate of home ownership in Australia are likely the cause of this trend.
The biggest challenge this creates is the flow-on effect on lower-income households because they may face stronger competition for a limited supply of rental stock, and they also have less capacity to cope with rising rents that look likely to keep going up due to the entrenched undersupply.
The 2024 ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report notes that weekly rents have been rising strongly since the pandemic and are currently re-accelerating. “Nationally, annual rent growth has lifted from a recent low of 8.1 percent year-on-year in October 2023, to 8.6 percent year-on-year in March 2024,” according to the report. “The re-acceleration was particularly evident in house rents, where annual growth bottomed out at 6.8 percent in the year to September, and rose to 8.4 percent in the year to March 2024.”
Rents are also rising in markets that have experienced recent declines. “In Hobart, rent values saw a downturn of -6 percent between March and October 2023. Since bottoming out in October, rents have now moved 5 percent higher to the end of March, and are just 1 percent off the record highs in March 2023. The Canberra rental market was the only other capital city to see a decline in rents in recent years, where rent values fell -3.8 percent between June 2022 and September 2023. Since then, Canberra rents have risen 3.5 percent, and are 1 percent from the record high.”
The Productivity Commission’s review of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement points out that high-income earners also have more capacity to relocate to cheaper markets when rents rise, which creates more competition for lower-income households competing for homes in those same areas.
ANZ CoreLogic notes that rents in lower-cost markets have risen the most in recent years, so much so that the portion of earnings that lower-income households have to dedicate to rent has reached a record high 54.3 percent. For middle-income households, it’s 32.2 percent and for high-income households, it’s just 22.9 percent. ‘Housing stress’ has long been defined as requiring more than 30 percent of income to put a roof over your head.
While some high-income households may aspire to own their own homes, rising property values have made that a difficult and long process given the years it takes to save a deposit. ANZ CoreLogic data shows it now takes a median 10.1 years in the capital cities and 9.9 years in regional areas to save a 20 percent deposit to buy a property.
It also takes 48.3 percent of income in the cities and 47.1 percent in the regions to cover mortgage repayments at today’s home loan interest rates, which is far greater than the portion of income required to service rents at a median 30.4 percent in cities and 33.3 percent in the regions.
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
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