Family ends two-year search with $3m-plus Newtown home
Tremayne, at 15 Layton Crescent, Newtown, was secured in a $3m-plus deal by a Geelong family that's spent two years in the market searching for the right property.
Buxton, Newtown agent Tom Butters said it's a special home that was built in the 1970s.
'It is the biggest sale in Newtown for the year so far,' Mr Butters said.
The local family had been searching for the right home for a couple of years, he said.
'They wanted that land factor,' Mr Butters said.
'They'll probably put their own spin on the house.
'But it's a pretty special house on 1300sq m in Layton Crescent, which is arguably one of the best streets in Newtown.'
The property was listed last November with $3.2m to $3.5m hopes after a previous listing in 2023 at a higher price unable to find a buyer.
The classic architecture has created big spaces tied together with a raked, timber-lined ceiling.
Floor to ceiling windows and doors draw in plenty of natural light to the split-level home with plenty of architectural cues, such as 3.65m ceilings, and angled windows allowing the main raked ceiling to run continuously through the main portion of the house; a mezzanine level above a study, laundry, bathroom and sauna, and an open deck that overlooks the rear courtyard and onto the big backyard pool.
'It's amazing. The 1970s build features a big open space with timber ceilings,' Mr Butters said.
'The architecture is beautiful, really special, all open and full of light.'
While new hydronic heating and ducted heating and cooling add to a long list of amenities in the home, it's the main elements such as hardwood timber cabinets, a redesigned outdoor area featuring and open timber pergola and the expansive open-plan living, dining and kitchen area that connected to the landscaped garden that catches the eye.
Gardens dominate the property, which is walking distance to The Geelong College Middle School, and also close to St Josephs College, Sacred Heart College and The Geelong College's senior school.
The sale has beaten the previous highest price for a custom five-bedroom residence from renowned Geelong builder Bruce Warren.
The Nantes St residence sold for just shy of $2.93m in March.
PropTrack data shows Newtown's median house price is $1.17m.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
How the Albanese Government plans to revolutionise the taxes you pay for driving a car
Australia's new tax on electric vehicle drivers is set to kick off with a trial period for trucks before it stings cars. can reveal that the Albanese Government is looking at a staged rollout to test the proposed new EV tax and trucks will be the first cab off the rank. It is also interested in a new road user charge that sends price signals on the best time to be on the road, or the freeway. Over time, it could replace petrol taxes and apply to all cars based on distance travelled and when cars and trucks are on the road to tackle congestion. Free ride for EVs nearly over The free ride enjoyed by drivers of electric vehicles is coming to a close with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and state governments finalising plans for a new road-user charge. All Australian motorists who buy petrol and diesel at the bowser pay 51.6 cents a litre in fuel excise. But drivers of EV vehicles pay nothing. 'The status quo won't be sustainable over the next decade or two,'' Treasurer Jim Chalmers told 'As more and more people get off petrol cars and into EVs we've got to make sure that the tax arrangements support investment in roads. 'But we're in no rush, changes of this nature will be made, because the status quo won't work in 10 or 20 years.' The Treasurer made no secret of his support for a road user charge before the election, but favours a staged rollout of the changes. Based on a planned NSW road user scheme, a national rollout will depend on your mileage but might cost between $300 and $400 a year. Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said that electric vehicles are 'heavier and do more damage to the road network as a consequence than do internal combustion engine vehicles'. 'By giving drivers a clear signal about the cost of infrastructure, they would have an incentive to use it more efficiently,' the Productivity Commission report said. How does fuel excise work? The current rate of fuel excise is 51.6 cents in excise for every litre of fuel purchased. For a typical household with a car running on petrol, the tax costs more than $1200 a year. But the flat sales tax isn't paid by drivers of pure electric vehicles, who simply need to plug in their cars to recharge. While registration and driver's licence fees go to state and territory governments, fuel excise is collected by the federal government. Australian motorists paid an estimated $15.71 billion in net fuel excise in 2023-24, and are expected to pay $67.6 billion over the four years to 2026-27. However, governments have long-warned that a road-user charge will be required to fill the gap in the budget left by declining revenue from the fuel excise, as the petrol and diesel engines in new cars consume less fuel and Australians adopt hybrid and electric cars. What does the AAA say? The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) is calling for a national approach to road-user charging but wants a guarantee the revenue will be earmarked for road upgrades. The AAA backs a distance-based road-user charging as a fairer and more equitable way to fund land transport infrastructure. The 2024 federal budget forecasted a reduction in fuel excise receipts by $470 million over four years from 2024-25. Roadblocks to reform Currently, New South Wales is the only state with firm plans to introduce a road-user charge from 2027 or when EVs reach 30 per cent of new car sales. Plug-in hybrid EVs will be charged a fixed 80 per cent proportion of the full road-user charge to reflect their vehicle type. Western Australia has also stated an intention to implement a road-user charge. Meanwhile, Victoria's electric vehicle levy had to be scrapped following a ruling from the High Court. Two Victorian electric car owners launched a legal challenge on the basis the tax was not legal as it was an excise that only a federal government could impose. They won, with the High Court upholding the legal challenge. There have been several false starts to enshrine a road-user charge including in South Australia, where the former Liberal Government planned to introduce a charge for plug-in electric and other zero emission vehicles, which included a fixed component and a variable charge based on distance travelled. It was later pushed back to 2027 due to a backlash before the legislation was ultimately repealed. 'Gold standard' for reform Some experts argue the gold standard for reform is a variable rate that factors in the vehicle's mass, distance travelled, location, and time of day. But there's a big barrier to the Commonwealth imposing those charges because the Constitution prohibits it from imposing taxes that discriminate between states or parts of states.

ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Rooftop solar and home batteries could reduce the need for wind farms, research finds
At first blush, Suzanne Bradshaw and Greg Ash could be your typical household power consumers. They live in a house they built six years ago on a battleaxe block in the inner Perth suburb of Mount Lawley. Like so many households, theirs is one that increasingly relies on electricity — from the gadgets under their roof to the solar panels on top of it. But look a little closer and a different picture emerges. In a workshop attached to the house are a number of kilns — electric furnaces used by Ash to make glass. "I've been working on glass, this type of glass, for 23 years now," the 72-year-old says. "So they [the kilns] can consume a fair bit of power." Given their power needs, the couple have had to take steps to mitigate their exposure to the grid — and its associated costs. They were early adopters of solar power, forking out more than $20,000 for panels when the technology was still relatively expensive. In 2019, when they moved into their new house, they installed an even bigger system and followed it up with a battery a couple of years later. And to round it out, they have signed up for a type of dynamic pricing known as a time-of-use tariff, enabling them to draw dirt cheap power off the grid between 9am and 3pm every day. It costs them about nine cents for every kilowatt hour they buy from their retailer during those hours — but up to 45 cents per kilowatt hour at other times. "The good thing about that is if it's an overcast day and you're not getting as much solar coming in, you can top up your battery during the middle of the day," Bradshaw says. "That also means we're not using electricity during the peak… that other consumers need." The couple's circumstances are increasingly common among Australian consumers. Australia has long led the world in its adoption of rooftop solar and Western Australia is no exception. There are more than four million small-scale solar installations across the country's homes and businesses — equivalent to about one in three customers. It's a similar figure in WA, where about 400,000 small-scale customers have solar. And now, courtesy of generous subsidies led by the Commonwealth, uptake of batteries is booming, too. For the first time, registrations for batteries under the Federal Government's small-scale green energy scheme exceeded those for solar panels in July. A new report commissioned by the office of Brad Pettitt, the leader of the WA Greens, is urging the Cook Government to go much further. The report, written by green power advocates Sustainable Energy Now, suggests WA has barely scratched the surface of its rooftop solar capacity. It says "only 13 per cent of the potential capacity" for rooftop solar has been realised in WA's main grid, which spans the country's south-western corner. And it notes that of those customers who have solar, fewer than one in 20 have a battery as well. The lobby argues that better capitalising on WA's capacity for small-scale solar power and batteries could dramatically cut the need for large-scale projects required as part of the transition away from fossil fuels. "Fully utilising suitable rooftops" could slash the need for wind and solar farms while halving the requirement for new high-voltage power lines and saving billions, it argues. Crucially, it says small-scale solutions will also be much quicker than large-scale ones, a key advantage given the government's plan to get out of coal power by 2029. Pettitt says the state's current plan, which relies on large-scale projects, is off track. "The fastest and fairest way to decarbonise is actually utilising our rooftops," Pettitt says. "There are savings in the billions around needing less transmission. "We're saying 'let's get smart about this, using existing rooftops, we don't need to clear vegetation, we don't need to put in new transmission, we can do it now and we can do it quickly'." Not everyone supports the proposal. Greg Watkinson, the former chief executive of WA's economic watchdog and a director of Electricity Market Advisory Services, says there are risks for consumers in the plan. He says there are significant costs incurred by households and small businesses when they invest in solar panels and batteries and many can over-capitalise. By contrast, he says there are economies of scale when big businesses invest in large-scale projects such as major batteries and wind farms. What's more, he says those big businesses are sophisticated investors "who know what they're doing and it's their money to burn — if they waste it, it's on them". "The risk is that households end up spending too much," Watkinson says. "If we ended up having solar panels on everyone's roofs, maybe we'd be spending too much. "I expect we would be, so I don't think that's the way to go." WA Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson declined a request for an interview. Instead, she issued a statement in which she said the government "recognises the importance of harnessing our vast rooftop solar resource". The Minister noted the government is helping up to 100,000 households to get batteries through its — albeit watered down — subsidy scheme. Glass artist Greg Ash thinks he's ahead of the game now he's got a battery along with his solar panels. "All you have to do is look at what's happening in the eastern states as opposed to here," Ash says. "We're better off with our power and gas than they are, but it will come back and bite us here, so people should be looking at solar and battery. "And hopefully that will get cheaper for the average person."

ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Queensland's 'extreme' house price growth expected to continue amid new laws
Experts say south-east Queensland's "extreme rate" of property price growth is unlikely to be affected by new seller disclosure laws which came into effect in August. Under the new laws, sellers must provide a mandatory comprehensive disclosure statement before signing a contract. It must include any relevant information about land contamination, zoning, heritage listings, transport resumption plans and accurate rates and water charges. But with Brisbane leading the country in profitable property resales, Domain's Dr Nicola Powell said south-east Queensland remains a sellers' market. More than 99 per cent of properties on the market in Brisbane sold for a profit in the first six months of 2025, according to new data from Domain. The median profit from a house sale in Brisbane was $480,000 – up from $145,000 in 2019. "Brisbane's almost been in this kind of super cycle," Dr Powell said. "There are a lot of things happening economically for south-east Queensland and there's a lot of competition when you think about the lack of new homes being built." With the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the horizon, competition from the infrastructure sector will draw workers away from residential building, Dr Powell said. Real estate agents claim the changes have led to a 'bottleneck' in sales, but Dr Powell said the laws bring Queensland in line with other states and territories. "This is about strengthening the property sector," Dr Powell said. "It's about ensuring buyers have all of the information they need. "We have to remember most people's largest asset [is] their home. If you've got a seller trying to manipulate the system or hide something about the property, what this is trying to do is add that level of transparency." Dr Powell said the high costs associated with the property market means owners are holding on to their homes for longer. "Things like stamp duty, which are really a disincentive to move. They add tens of thousands of dollars to a property transaction," she said. A new rate cut from the Reserve Bank — the third so far in 2025 — will have a "short-lived" impact on the Brisbane market, Antonia Mercorella from the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) said. "There tends to be a bit of a holding pattern that occurs around the time of the [rate cut] announcement," Ms Mercorella said. "It's probably not as significant as one might think simply because the demand for property here is just so incredibly strong." Ms Mercorella said she believes the "scarcity problem" will continue to drive prices up. "Even if people aren't getting those interest rate cuts that they're hoping for, they're still needing to secure that shelter, so that's ultimately what's the biggest factor at play," she said. While it might not impact prices, the new disclosure scheme could initially see some contracts delayed, Ms Mercorella said. "There are concerns that it will slow things down. As time marches on, we will get better at preparing these disclosure documents." For sellers frustrated by a new legislative hurdle, Ms Mercorella said preparation is key. 'The moment you are engaging a real estate agent that's when you should start thinking about the preparation of that seller disclosure statement so that it doesn't lead to delays when a buyer comes along,' she said. Ms Mercorella said the changes could also help sellers and potentially lead to fewer contract terminations. "There is an argument to be made that actually they may reduce the number of contract terminations because a buyer is entering into the contract with better knowledge about the key matters affecting the property." "It enables you to identify any issues affecting the property of a negative nature that could be addressed before putting it on the market."