Ready to step back in time? Original Glebe home for sale with $1.8 million price tag

Ready to step back in time? A well-preserved original home in Glebe, in Sydney’s inner west, has come onto the market.

The three-bedroom house at 79 Wigram Road, on 278 square metres of land, is asking $1.8 million and offers a slice of history.

Agent Michael Xanthoudakis, from Richardson & Wrench Newtown, said the home was liveable, but still needed some work and a bit of a makeover.

“It’s a good original house. It was always owner-occupied,” he said. “Structurally, it seems very sound and solid.”

“It’s got an old bathroom, and it’s got an old kitchen.”

Not much is known about the home’s history, but it has been in the same family for many years.

The suburb of Glebe has church origins, with land granted to the Church of England by Governor Phillip in 1790.

Glebe Point Road was built in 1828, the public school founded in 1858, and the Glebe Sydney Hospital for Sick Children set up in 1880 on the corner of Glebe Point Road and Wigram Road.

Wigram Road can be seen on an 1886 map, and the address rates a mention in a September 1910 newspaper article, where it is identified as the address of one John English,  a “clothier and mercier”, and a nominated candidate for the New South Wales general election for the Independent Labor party.

John English ran a business in George Street in Haymarket and was active in local government, serving as an alderman for the Belmore Ward from December 1904 and eventually relocating to Homebush Road, Strathfield.

He was later elected lord mayor of Sydney in 1919, but lasted just three months, dying in office in March of that year.

Back in the present, it’s still the early days of the campaign, but Mr Xanthoudakis noted that older-style character homes tended to attract a lot of renovator interest.

“It just got listed,” he said. “But I have had quite a few enquiries so far.”

In terms of the eventual buyer,  he thought it “would definitely suit a young family.”

He added that there was the potential to take a cue from next door and use the rear lane access to build a garage behind the home or a “nice big deck”.

Another area that could be capitalised on was the storage space below the house, which would be “perfect for a wine cellar”.

Mr Xanthoudakis said that since the federal election and recent interest rate cuts the market had seen an upswing, with older style properties highly sought after.

One of his recent listings – a three-bedroom home on Wilson Street, Newtown – drew 13 registered bidders and went above its reserve price, selling for $2.39 million in June, as had another at 158 Little Eveleigh Street, Redfern which wound up selling for $2.726 million in July.

Glebe’s median house price as of June 2019 was $1.595 million. Records show no house sales for Wigram Road, Glebe, this year; the most recent sale on the street was that of an updated three-bedroom home at number 31, which sold for $2.2 million in November 2018.

The home at 79 Wigram Road, Glebe, will be auctioned on Tuesday, October 15, at 6.30pm, with a price guide of $1.8 million.