The sale of the Hawthorn home, known as Avon Court, marks a new record for Melbourne. The seller was property developer and aged care entrepreneur Clinton Casey, who paid $5.7 million for the property in 2003, before spending about $9 million on an extensive refurbishment.
The home features a private cinema, personal gym, ballroom, wine cellar, flower room, two swimming pools, seven kitchens, lifts and accommodation for 10 cars.
The buyer of the property is not known, although it has been reported that a Melbourne businessman is the new owner of the mansion.
The record price comes just a few weeks after a mystery local buyer paid $20 million for a mansion in the exclusive Melbourne suburb of Toorak.
Another smaller Toorak mansion owned by Future Fund guardian Jeffrey Browne was also sold for $18.5 million last week.
Earlier this month, Lachlan Murdoch paid $23 million for a mansion in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Bellvue Hill.
He beat a strong field of bidders including Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman for the property, which has sweeping views of Sydney Harbour.
The sudden boom in prestige property comes after a difficult period at the top of the housing market, where prices plunged by as much as 30% in some capital cities.
Tony Kelly, managing director of the Melbourne office of valuer Herron Todd White, says an increase in the interest from international buyers is helping to push prices up sharply.
The Federal Government's recent decision to relax foreign property ownership restrictions has led to an influx of foreign buyers at all levels of the property market, he says.
"When you think about what goes on in the southern part of the hemisphere, Australia is really one of the safest places to put money into property. Our economy is very stable and it's been very strong compared to a lot of other places," he says.
"If you've got some money in India and China, then Australia looks like a pretty safe place."
A second contributing factor is a strategy used by agents to take selling campaigns out of the public spotlight and pitch high-end mansions to quiet, cashed-up buyers.
"What they are trying to do at the minute is really marry somebody who might need to sell quietly with some of this international money coming in," Kelly says.
