St Kilda West house price record smashed with $11.7 million sale

The St Kilda West house price record has been smashed in an $11.7 million deal, struck late last year but only emerging on title records this month.

Two blocks from the beach, the home on a spacious parcel of 963 square metres fetched the top price in a quiet off-market sale.

Public records show the York Street home settled for $11.7 million this month, although the sale was agreed in October – well before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted rapid changes to the real estate industry’s operation to comply with social distancing requirements.

And in an extra twist, title records show the seller then bought the buyer’s house in neighbouring Albert Park, with the two parties effectively swapping residences although at different prices.

The previous top price in the bayside suburb was set at $7.5 million for a converted church on Cowderoy Street in 2018, records show.

Agents in conjunction on the York Street sale were The Agency’s Michael Paproth and Greg Hocking’s Simon Gowling.

Mr Paproth said the home was a “great result pre-coronavirus”, but even so, added demand was still strong in the inner bayside neighbourhoods.

“If I had it back, I think it’s worth that [price] and more,” Mr Paproth said.

“Because the market is screaming out for big family homes in ‘the bubble’.”

He noted the recent sale of an Albert Park home for $9.01 million at one of the last in-person auctions before the clampdown on public gatherings, contested by five bidders, and on a comparatively smaller block of 600 square metres.

Mr Gowling said although St Kilda West does not typically bring the same prices as neighbouring Middle Park and Albert Park, this was a special home with everything the buyer wanted.

“I think it was a bit of an out of the box home,” he said.

“It was a very special and very unique piece of real estate. It demanded a very high price and it did achieve that.”

The architects and interior designers of the York Street home were Jackson Clements Burrows Pty Ltd.

“It was basically their house on steroids,” he said.

“Three times the size but a very similar feeling.”

Correction, April 28: An earlier version of this article misstated the interior designer on the York Street home. The designers were Jackson Clements Burrows Pty Ltd, not Mim Design.