Australia’s trophy home games: Scott pays $130m, Ian buys for $40m and Gina’s selling for $17.2m

News Corp Australia Network

As the rest of us tighten our belts, billionaire Scott Farquahar bought a $130m mansion; rich garbo Ian Malouf blew $40m in Palmy and Gina Rinehart’s set for a big pay day in Noosa.

Traditionally the Christmas-New Year period is a quiet time for prestige home sales, but this December and January, Australia’s mega rich have been buying and listing lavish properties.

Farquahar, the Atlassian co-founder, and his wife, the investment banker Kim Jackson, snapped up the historic Wentworth St, Point Piper trophy home, Uig Lodge, in the week before Christmas, with no agents involved.

Built in the style of a Scottish baronial castle at the turn of last century, Uig Lodge, on a 3300sqm block, had previously traded for $9.2m in 1996 when bought by Steven and Carol Moss of the Katies fashion empire.

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The $130m price was the highest for a house in the country, beating the previous $100m record paid for Point Piper’s Fairwater by the other Atlassian founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, in 2018.

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It follows council’s rejection of Farquahar and Jackson’s plans for Elaine, the mansion next door to Fairwater, that held the previous national record when bought for $71m via top agent Ken Jacobs in 2017.

Jacobs, of Forbes Global Properties, says the sale of Uig Lodge, shows “when the right property comes along, there are buyers waiting for it”.

He’s predicting that 2023 will be “a good year”.

“I think there will be more activity than last year, subject to more stock coming on and that’s what it’s all about.”

The garbo turned yacht broker Malouf, who has a net worth of $600m having sold his waste company Dial a Dump, spent about $40m on the beachfront home, Anakela, on a 1948sqm block overlooking Pittwater.

That sale, which broke the Palm Beach record, also occurred in the week leading up to Christmas.

It’s set to be another getaway for Malouf and his family. He now owns three houses on Iluka Rd, having paid $20m and $18.6m over the past 20 months. He also owns a string of homes in the east.

The vendor of the most recent property was Uncle Toby’s breakfast cereal company founder Doug Sheers, who’d bought it for a record $15m in 2007.

Meanwhile, mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is hoping for a $6m profit on a beachfront block at Noosa that she bought for $11.2m last February.

The Park Crescent, Sunshine Beach 531sqm property is being offered for sale with a $17.2m price guide through Tom Offermann Real Estate.