Inside Australia’s most expensive home sold in 2022 at Vaucluse, Sydney

Australia’s most expensive home has seven bedrooms, three kitchens, 13 bathrooms, a cinema, panoramic views of Sydney‘s Harbour Bridge and the Opera House – and a $62.75million price tag.

Sydney was home to seven of the 10 most expensive houses sold in 2022, with Melbourne taking one spot on the list via a Toorak mansion and Queensland claiming two spots with homes at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

The eastern suburbs of Sydney comprised half of CoreLogic’s elite list for the most expensive pieces of real estate that changed owners this year. 

At the top of this list was a mansion on Wentworth Road in Vaucluse that in February sold for $62.75million.

Australia’s most expensive home has seven bedrooms, three kitchens, 13 bathrooms, a panoramic view of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge and Opera House – and a $62.75million price tag

The mansion on Wentworth Road in Vaucluse (pictured) sold for $62.75million in February, 2022

That is 7.9 times Vaucluse’s median price of $7.944million, already making it Australia’s most expensive suburb. 

Chinese car dealer Helen Huang settled on the property in October as a private sale and is listed as an owner-occupier, CoreLogic records show.

Her new home, built in 2007, has a 20-car garage, two internal lifts, indoor and outdoor pools, a gym, cinema, an in-house private function area and manicured gardens designed by Australian landscape gardener Paul Bangay.

The home sold for $4million in October, 2002 and was previously on the market for 276 days in 2019. 

A previous house on the block had sold for $895,000 in January 1987.

Melbourne entered the elite list in fourth place, behind three homes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, with a newly-built $38.5million mansion on Orrong Road at Toorak in the city’s inner east.

Queensland’s Sunshine Coast came in at the eighth spot, with a Sunshine Beach house at Noosa selling for $28.5million in April.

Of the top 10 most expensive homes sold in 2022, eight of them sold when interest rates were still at a record-low of 0.1 per cent and before the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the cash rate in May for the first time since November, 2010.

Sydney was home to seven of the 10 most expensive houses sold in 2022, including a house (pictured) at Palm Beach which in June sold for $27.5million

The remaining two, both in Noosa, sold in June and July during the RBA’s first two rate rises during this tightening cycle, which in 2022 saw eight consecutive monthly increases with more expected in 2023.

The cash rate is now at a 10-year high of 3.1 per cent so a very rich individual hypothetically borrowing to buy a $62.75million mansion with a 20 per cent deposit – paying off a $50.2million loan – would be up for $268,656 a month in repayments, up $75,742 from $192,914 in May.

That’s based on a Commonwealth Bank variable rate surging from 2.29 per cent to 4.97 per cent, as of December 16.

Queensland’s Sunshine Coast took out the two remaining places on the top 10 list, including a $27million mansion at Noosa Heads (pictured) that sold in July

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Sydney’s eastern suburbs was home to six of Australia’s 10 most expensive suburbs including Vaucluse, Bellevue Hill (median price of $6.882million), Rose Bay (median price $5.661million), Dover Heights ($5.087million), Double Bay ($4.944million) and Bronte (median price $4.668million).

Melbourne made the list in fifth spot with Toorak having a median price of $4.956million.

Apart from that Sydney was home to nine of Australia’s 10 most expensive suburbs, which also included Cremorne Point (median price $4.944million), Mosman (median price $4.871million) and Longueville (median price $4.460million).

None of Australia’s most expensive homes falls within a Liberal-held federal electorate, but Noosa residents are represented in Canberra by a Nationals MP.