Sydney's 'Villa Florida' Is On The Market

Offering true waterfront, 12 Tivoli Avenue, Rose Bay, Sydney – built-in 1928 – is set across 1290sqm and is ready for sale.

Enjoying an extensive refresh courtesy of acclaimed architect Michael Suttor, the three-storey, 7-bedroom, 9-bathroom, 4-car parking residence – affectionately named ‘Villa Florida’ – offers an elusive street-to-waterfront property with views of Sydney Harbour.

Suttor and his team restored the home beyond its former glory, making use of its architectural features – such as the arched windows, a pitched cathedral ceiling, wrought iron balcony details and a jaw-dropping spiral staircase – drawing a line heightened levels of ‘European’ luxury.

The home sees a manicured courtyard area usher you into the approx. 930sqm home. Inside, the residence is replete with a combination of parquetry flooring, travertine limestone tiling and sandstone finishes alongside Venetian plastering finished in beeswax.

On the lower ground floor sits the billiard room, family room and kitchen, fitted with European appliances, granite benchtops and custom cabinetry.

Also on the lower ground floor are two bedrooms, each complete with an ensuite, accompanied by a further bedroom and access to the terrace.

Up the aforementioned spiral staircase to the ground floor lands the master suite which features a walk-in-robe and ensuite with access to a private balcony and the sunroom providing further water views through the arched windows. A further two bedrooms are also found on this level.

Elsewhere, on the ground floor, arrives the formal dining and living, complete with a working stone fireplace and another kitchen – with finishes coordinating with the downstairs offering.

Throughout the expansive residence, the nine bathrooms feature mosaic tiling and travertine limestone flooring with granite details.

Upstairs further to the first floor sees a further two bedrooms and a library that is accompanied by a large sandstone terrace that has capacity for 200 people.

Outside, the sandstone adorned pool loggia arrives with a bathroom and chef’s kitchen. Here, the terraced gardens guide you down to the water’s edge allowing the owner to soak in the best of what Sydney has to offer.

The listing is with Black Diamondz Property Concierge’s Monika Tu (+61 409 898 888) and Jad Khatta (+61 432 669 287). Price guide $45 million.

Blackdiamondz.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.

Sydney’s ‘Villa Florida’ Is On The Market

This historic waterfront pile could now be yours.

This may be contributing to continually rising weekly rents