Home that sat empty for 7 years on sale for $18 million more than original price

The home in Vaucluse was purchased in 2016. (Source: realestate.com.au)

The stunning Werribee Estate in Sydney’s exclusive eastern suburbs was purchased by a Chinese billionaire in 2016 for $20 million, and has since sat empty.

Now, the Vaucluse home has been put back on the market, with Chinese food tycoon Sun Shao Feng hoping to fetch a cool $38 million.

It has a beautiful outlook towards the Harbour Bridge. (Source: realestate.com.au)

Despite the home having been uninhabited and unmaintained for seven years, it does come with approved plans for a new 10-bedroom home that could be built behind the heritage-listed facade.

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The home has remained relatively untouched since it was purchased in 2016. (Source: realestate.com.au)

But is the massive $18 million price rise in line with other homes in the area? Well, kind of.

According to CoreLogic’s 2022 Best of the Best report, Vaucluse was named Australia’s most expensive suburb, with an average home price of more than $7 million. The most expensive home sold in 2022 was also in Vaucluse, selling for a whopping $62.6 million.

Now the home is expected to sell for around $38 million. (Source: realestate.com.au)

Do international buyers lift home prices?

Australians have expressed concerns about Chinese investment in the Australian residential property market, a UTS study found.

The study found a clear majority of Australians (82 per cent) felt foreign buyers from China drove up Australian housing prices.

Around seven in 10 Australians (69 per cent) said Chinese investors in Australian real estate had made it difficult for first-home buyers in Australia to enter the market.

The same number of those surveyed also felt Chinese investors had negatively affected the rental market for residential real estate in Australia.

The majority of Australians (78 per cent) believed the Government should restrict the amount of Chinese investment in residential real estate.

However, the February 2023 NAB residential property survey revealed foreign buyers only accounted for 5.2 per cent of the Aussie property market, though that was up from 5 per cent in the third quarter of 2022.

Despite the small uptick, NAB said the share of foreign buyers in all states and territories was below average.

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