* Perth suburbs have houses with highest average value * Moman Park, Peppermint Grove * Most expensive house sold in Australia
A 2KM stretch of Perth's Swan riverfront has become the most expensive real estate precinct in the country.
Sausage sizzles won't be on the menu when fertiliser billionaires and militant vegetarians Pankaj and Radhika Oswal move in to their Bollywood palace in Peppermint Grove, The Australian reports.
But theirs is not the only residence under construction.
Last year's record sale of the sprawling 7564sqm Mosman Park residence of reclusive mining heiress Angela Bennett, the daughter of Lang Hancock's business partner Peter Wright, has sparked a flurry of renovations, building and buying across Perth's two most sought-after suburbs.
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* Perth's rich second wealthiest in the land Perth Now, 15 Sep 2010 * Peppy Grove WA's highest income earner Perth Now, 14 Sep 2010 * Expensive real estate The Australian, 14 Aug 2010 * One in ten Perth homes worth $1m Perth Now, 22 May 2010 * Billionaire bans meat on building site Daily Telegraph, 28 Mar 2010
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Chris Ellison, a mining tycoon who shares his name, but not his billions, with a former Howard government minister, paid a cool $57.5 million for the Bennett home, within walking distance of developer Luke Saraceni's $16m pad and property magnate Peter Laurance's $20m-plus mansion.
So it was no surprise when the Australian Bureau of Statistics crunched the numbers and announced that Peppermint Grove and Mosman Park had the highest average value of private sector houses in 2008-09, at $2.469m and $1.579m respectively.
The two suburbs were well ahead of Mosman, in Sydney, with the highest average value houses in New South Wales at $1.373m.
Prominent Perth car dealer John Hughes spent a lazy $6.7m for a temporary roof in exclusive Saunders Street while he and his wife, Margarita, fight Mosman Park Council over plans to bowl over his current home just down the road and rebuild.
Hughes has lived in a relatively older house at the end of the cul-de-sac for 31 years, and loves it.
"I'd be very happy to live there forever," he says.
"But it's what my wife wants . . . and who in their right mind would argue with their wife?"
Hughes, a Sandgroper known for his charity work, said Saunders Street was constantly changing.
"There always seems to be a crane or a couple of cranes on the skyline there," he says. "It's a street on the move."
A few doors away at No 31 is one of Cape Bouvard billionaire Ralph Sarich's many investment properties, while Tim Goyder, who made his fortune in resources, like so many ratepayers in the area, and is the cousin of Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder, bought No 23 for $6.3m in 2007 so he could protect the views of his home at No 24 just across the road.
