Inside The Historic 'Namarong' Mansion

Here, in Melbourne’s Armadale, comes the rare opportunity to own one of the city’s true landmarks, ‘Namarong’. Built in 1868, the historic home — which is perched on 3370sqm of what once was pastoral highland — offers a confident combination of old-world charm combined with a contemporary remodel.

The exterior of the heady pile arrives in an Italianate Victorian fashion with lush gardens — of which two of the remaining original palms — punctuate the tree-lined avenue with the sweeping gated forecourt of Parisienne sensibility creating a captivating entrance.

Within the home’s three levels, 6-bedrooms, 5-bathrooms, and enough parking for 8-cars, the old world script has been completely flipped following a two-year renovation by designers Kennedy Nolan.

While plasterwork and joinery retain or emulate the charm of a Victorian, they have been updated with bright colours – think vibrant blues and bright orange carpets combined with high ceilings and detailed panelwork throughout.

The ground floor sees the formal lounge and music room alongside a separated living and dining and the kitchen, with its ‘Tangerine’ Laconche, handmade French stovetop and oven.

Also here is a scullery, walk-in pantry and home office with access to the terrace and barbecue area.

Upstairs sees the majority of the home’s accommodation, with four bedrooms plus the master suite found here. The master suite includes an expansive retreat, ‘his’ and ‘hers’ dressing rooms and a large, opulently appointed ensuite. Also on the first level is a library and mezzanine access to a meditation room.

The home’s lower level gives access to the guest quarters, which includes a bedroom that sits alongside an expansive housekeeper’s laundry, theatre, games room, another kitchen and access to the courtyard, garage and sauna.

Back outside, and meandering through the residence’s expansive grounds, one finds the inground pool – which was once an indoor pool, the charming tennis enclosure and a functional alfresco dining area.

The home offers the best of Armadale’s peaceful, tree-lined living and is only 7km from Melbourne’s CBD and only minutes from the suburb’s High Street and its shopping and eateries.

The home is listed with Private Property Global’s Michael Gibson; (+61 418 530 392). Price guide $22-24 million. Ppgloba.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.

Inside The Historic ‘Namarong’ Mansion

The remodelled Italianate pile is on the market.

This may be contributing to continually rising weekly rents