Prestige Property: 28 Grange Road, Toorak, VIC

Introducing ‘The Grange’ — a residence of grace and grandeur bringing the traditions of time-honoured mansions to Melbourne’s most coveted locale.

Here, architect Christopher Doyle has designed an expansive, four-level, 9-bedroom, 9-bathroom, 6-car garage residence across a 1339sqm site.

The opulent residence sees a façade of hand grafted, Mount Gambier limestone, and features unrivalled refinement within the formal and family living and dining domains on the ground floor.

The dining alcove, with its circular design and wire panelling, is a standout feature that immediately makes an opulent statement.

Fireplaces are found in both the formal living and dining and family room alongside the expansive study that adds further allure to the home.

Central to the home’s function is the state-of-the-art kitchen that boasts imported Calacatta marble surfaces and Gaggenau appliances throughout, as well as in the butler’s pantry.

The ground floor gives access to the sublime outdoor entertaining area designed by Jack Merlo via French doors. Here, the space features an elegant terrace entertaining area paired with a wet edge swimming pool, alfresco kitchen and pool house with a bathroom.

In the heart of the home is a circular staircase that allows access to the upper levels which see the accommodation. The home also sees all levels serviced by an internal lift.

The upper two levels of the residence sees nine bedrooms, each replete with flawlessly finished private ensuites. The main suite features its own fireplace, French silk wallpaper, a luxurious ensuite fitted with marble adornments, a large dressing room and access to an office space

Further, the accommodation is accompanied by a welcoming retreat, music room, office or library and is complemented by grand balcony proportions — some of which offer views of the city skyline.

The lower ground level — also accessible by lift — adds a 12-seat home cinema beneath a star feature ceiling, a gym, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, abundant storage and garaging for six cars.

The palatial residence is nearby to Toorak Road’s many boutique’s, café’s and shopping precincts offering the very best of Melbourne’s most highly sought after suburb.

The residence is listed with Abercromby’s Real Estate’s Jock Langley and Sam Goddard. Price guide $22-$24 million; abercrombys.com.au

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.

Prestige Property: 28 Grange Road, Toorak, VIC

Step inside an alluring mansion in Melbourne’s Toorak.

This may be contributing to continually rising weekly rents