A $10 million beachfront mansion has sold with one jaw-dropping catch – the luxury home is expected to be demolished, in a real estate move Australians have seen play out in Toorak, Brisbane and other blue-chip pockets where the land is worth more than the house.
The glamorous four-bedroom UK property, known as Samphire Sands, sits on the ultra-exclusive Sandbanks peninsula in Poole Harbour, Dorset, and would be considered a dream home in almost any market.
The two-storey residence, built in the 1960s, has harbour views at the front and Sandbanks beach at the rear, and was marketed with an $11.3 million price guide before selling for $10 million.
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But despite the eye-watering price tag, the waterfront home’s future may already be sealed.
Planning permission has been secured for the existing house to be knocked down and replaced with a far larger luxury residence, complete with an open-plan living area, four bedrooms, a study, gym, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, lift and balconies at both the front and back.
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The home comes with stunning ocean views. Credit: Rightmove
Once built, agents estimate the new home could be worth close to $19 million.
It is the kind of prestige property story that always turns heads in Australia because it taps into a familiar phenomenon at the very top end of the market: multimillion-dollar homes bought not for the house itself, but for the address, the land and the chance to build something even bigger.
Melbourne has seen some of the country’s most notorious examples.
In Toorak this year, an international celebrity couple – a world-famous Taiwanese actor and singer – paid a reported $45 million to $50 million for a sprawling 1920s estate, despite the existing seven-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion and extensive gardens.
It also has direct beach access. Credit: Rightmove
The attraction was understood to be the 3500sqm site, with plans to replace the home with a new mega-mansion.
More infamously, the grand 1913 mansion Idylwilde on St Georges Rd was bought for $18.5 million in 2013 by a wealthy overseas businessman who flew in on a private jet to inspect it. Despite efforts to protect the historic home, it was eventually demolished in a move that sparked major public backlash.
Brisbane has also had its own version of the same story.
In Norman Park, developer Danny Burke and his wife paid $6.68 million in late 2022 for the riverside mansion next door to their home, then flattened it to replace it with a garage.
It’s prove that in elite markets, even a luxury home can be treated as temporary if the underlying land offers enough prestige and upside.
The house in its current state has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and sold for $10m. Credit: Rightmove
Sandbanks estate agent Adrian Dunford of Tailor Made said that on the tightly held peninsula, buyers were often paying for future potential as much as the existing residence.
“Quite often on Sandbanks the value of the land is worth more than the house that is on it because it is all about the potential,” he told The Sun.
“In this case the land value isn’t too dissimilar to the value of the actual property.
“I would imagine a scenario where somebody buys the house and lives in it for a year so they can get a really clear idea of what rooms they use the most, what views they want to make the most of and where the sun comes up and goes down.
“They might then make some alterations to the plans for the three storey house that have already been approved to make it more bespoke to them.
“It would probably cost about £3 million ($5.6 million) to build and at the end of it they will have a house worth £10 million ($19 million).”
Plans have been submitted for a much more modern home on the site of the property.
Sandbanks has long drawn celebrities and sporting names, with John Lennon famously buying a bungalow there for his Aunt Mimi in 1965.
That property was later redeveloped into a six-bedroom home called Imagine, which was listed earlier this year for $28.3 million.
Former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is also among the area’s best-known residents, while Jamie Redknapp, Paul Gascoigne, Graeme Souness and celebrity chef Rick Stein have also been linked to the strip.