Last empty block of land in Portsea listed with record price hopes

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A rare parcel of blue ribbon Portsea land could nudge the Victorian real estate record.

Price expectations for the enormous plot in the Mornington Peninsula hamlet, which is freshly listed, are hovering at $25 million.

The state benchmark is $26 million paid for the Portsea cliff-top estate Ilyuka.

The sweeping 13.5 acres – a portion of the Tintagel Farm – has residential one zoning: a dangling carrot for developers. It’s understood to be the last large vacant land holding in Portsea.

Lot 2/183 Hotham Road has been in the same family since 1963, and is a slice of a 43-acre farm which was established in the 1800s.

The vendors purchased it from the Baillieu family, a prominent dynasty who have owned many significant Victorian properties.

It adjoins the national park and has views of the bay and Arthurs Seat, in Victoria’s most prestigious holiday postcode.

The buyer will have first right of refusal on an adjoining 3.15 acres.

Agents Hamish Opray and Andrew McCann from Jellis Craig are looking after the listing, which will include an international sales campaign, via expressions of interest.

Mr Opray said it was the vendors’ hopes that the land be retained by a family but its zoning opens up the possibility for development.

“There are options there,” he said.

“It is the vendors’ wishes is that someone purchase it and enjoy it the way they have, and have it as a farm or a family compound.

“But it is highly likely we will have interest from developers as well.”

Mr Opray said the listing has record-breaking potential.

“We have already had some interest over $20 million for the block of land; we would anticipate certainly around $25 million is likely with interest both locally and offshore,” he said.

“That is the premise of an EOI campaign – to let the market determine the price.

“We are searching far and wide, and some buyers’ advocates representing international parties have been briefed on this.

“There is nothing else like it available, and may well not be ever again. It’s a very, very special piece of land, held in the same family for approaching 65 or 70 years, and it doesn’t come up everyday.”

The peninsula market is entering its peak. Spring is the busiest period for metro real estate, but the beach market heats up through November and December.

Start of video transcript

Liz: When I was 19, I didn’t run away from home but I made the statement that I was going down to live in the family beach house. But my father quickly said you’re going to have to find yourself a career and a job and look after yourself if you’re going to live down there. The thing that’s changed is the volume of people that come down but all the same, there’s a limit to that. We say how busy it is over January or a long weekend but there’s no question at the end of that they’re all going to go back to Melbourne. They’re all going to go back to school. They’re all going to go back to work and we kind of have it to ourselves again. We often sell properties over and over again. People upgrade, they move from perhaps Blairgowrie to Sorrento, Sorrento to Portsea, Portsea back to Sorrento and we see those price growths in what I think is a short period of time but it’s really 30 years I’ve been watching it and it’s quite extraordinary. Of course, I think to myself why didn’t I just buy them all.

Warwick: The $8 million to $10 million mark has been not uncommon one of recent years. We’ve seen a few of those and we’ve seen a few little bit under that in the $4 to $6 million range as well. So I doubt very much that you’d probably get anything under $4 million on the cliff these days no matter how big or small it was. This particular house that we’re at now is one that’s very close to me having watched it being built as a kid. Designed by the very well-known architect Geoffrey Summers in the way of a Roman villa in other words around a central atrium. I had a particular fascination with the construction of this because I’ve never really seen anything like it before. In those days typically we had little beach shacks called CHI which stood for Consolidated Home Industries. But these were what commonly people built down here. They wanted a beach house. They didn’t want a massive edifice and so that’s why this was so much out of the ordinary. But, the thing is, it does work as a beach house as well. This is a place really which is so rare looking out to that bay view there’s really nowhere else in Victoria you can do this and I think people are coming to that realisation and actually retiring down here and spending all their time down here and maybe having an apartment in town.