Employees at the Heidelberg site have contacted us. Photo: NewsWire/David Crosling.
Real estate agents selling properties opposite Heidelberg Park where the 11m wide sinkhole opened said buyers were leaving because of tunneling work last year.
They warned that while the area’s most prestigious schools are still looking for homes, and competitive sales have continued despite the skepticism of some, the opening of a sinkhole just a few hundred meters from homes in the area could “rock the boat”.
The pit at AJ Burkitt Oval opened on Monday evening, and slowly expanded.
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It is now being tested by North East Link teams, who have been planning the design of the nearby road recently.
The government has confirmed that tunnel boring machines contributed to the creation of the sinkhole, as a full investigation is still ongoing and hiatus drilling continues while it occurs.
A map of the boring tunnel project shows that its machinery is currently located near Buckingham Drive, home to some of the city’s finest houses.
Residences along nearby Beverly Drive are also among the most sought-after, with most selling for $1.5m and up with park views.
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The sale of properties around the Heidelberg fair has led to at least eight million dollar-plus deals taking place since 2020. The hole is to the right of the two ovals.
A home in Beverley Rd, Heidelberg, sold for $1.61m in 2021, with views over the football fields where the hideaway appeared.
Sales records show at least eight homes have sold along the billionaire lines of Buckingham Drive, Beverley Rd and Yellow Box Terrace since 2020.
It includes a five-bedroom home that sold for $2.6m in an off-market setting that set the local benchmark in 2023.
Nelson Alexander’s Nunzio Sulfaro sold the adjacent house under the mandatory disclosure of the tunnel bore in December last year.
He said that although it was business as usual, some buyers were not willing to look at houses affected by the works.
“It will be interesting to see how the market reacts,” Mr Sulfaro said.
“In every section 32 if you are affected or not affected (the tunnel), and all the questions say: ‘it is a tunnel under my home’.
“Some buyers have left, despite the confirmation of the existing capacity.
“So the truth is that for some people, they don’t want to live above the tunnel.”
The Yellow Box Terrace, Heidelberg, home sold for $1.85m in 2023 and is 300 meters from the ovals.
This Buckingham Drive, Heidelberg, home sold for $2.6m in 2023.
However, the agent said it was difficult to calculate if there would have been an impact on house prices – as there was still a demand for houses on the affected roads that fall within the areas sought after by the schools.
“Many homes are still being sold under competitive conditions,” said Mr Sulfaro.
Most of the prospective buyers were directed to the Watsonia offices of the North East Link project for more information, and many returned, he added.
“But if anything is going to rock the boat, this is it.”
Mr Sulfaro said for many homebuyers, the view of the park, which made it feel like “living on a golf course” was enough to get homes close to $1.5m on Beverley Drive for a while.
Whether that changed will be determined by experts in the coming weeks as they investigate the cause of the sinkhole.
A neat kitchen inside a home for sale on Beverley Rd for $1.35m in 2022.
This home in Beverley Rd, Heidelberg, sold for $1.637m in May last year.
“If anything is going to rock the boat, it’s going to be a sinkhole,” he said.
Fletchers agent Rino Presutto is currently selling one of the houses in the immediate vicinity of the dive site, approximately 400m away.
When the tunnel went under the road a few weeks ago, he said there were still more than 50 groups that were testing it three months ago.
“Most of them were families and they came from all over, mostly from Pascoe Vale, Reservoir and Preston, because they like the parking,” she said.
He said the property was a “good home” and “solid”, but had not contacted a suitable buyer for its price at the end of last year and could return to the rental market if it did not sell soon.
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