Ben and Betty Pop are the proud new owners of an abandoned Cockatoo mansion which was 2024’s most-viewed property at realestate.com.au. Picture: Ian Currie.

An abandoned, graffiti-covered eyesore on Melbourne’s outskirts almost sold to bikies as a club house is set to become a “Toorak mansion in the bush”.

Its new owners are planning to revive the derelict home with an infinity pool and rooftop garden, but still make a permanent feature of illegal artworks spray-painted across the home throughout a decade of neglect that has left it with every door smashed to pieces and no functioning toilets.

Betty and Ben Pop bought the Cockatoo home this year, despite the property sitting mostly empty for at least 10 years during which time it has been targeted by vandals and damaged by disuse.

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The couple are expecting to spend up to seven figures bringing the 1960s’ icon back to life and have revealed they will keep some of its lime green interiors as an homage to the property’s colourful past — and have contacted the producers of Grand Designs about their plans.

Set on 5.3ha, the eight-bedroom house featuring a turret-like external staircase has become a local landmark thanks to its prominent Woori Yallock Rd position, one of the area’s busiest thoroughfares.

It is believed the mansion was originally built by a couple from a Romanian background who wanted a large family, but never had children.

In 2015, the still incomplete address sold, but remained unoccupied.

After it was put on the market in 2024, it became Australia’s most-viewed property for the year on realestate.com.au — with dozens of commenters labelling it an eyesore on social media.

The circa-1960s mansion on Woori Yallock Rd, Cockatoo, is often photographed by passers-by for social media.

Ben and Betty Pop inside the house where the signature lime-green walls have been covered in graffiti across the years. Picture: Ian Currie.

The mansion when it was previously listed for sale, in 2015.

Ranges First National Real Estate Belgrave and Cockatoo director Mick Dolphin and colleague Anthony Iorlano said they had received up to 1000 buyer inquiries about the mansion.

When Mr Dolphin had the listing a decade ago, multiple motorcycle gangs inspected the property in the hopes of turning it into a clubhouse.

A laser tag company also held a demonstration event there.

Ms Pop, who has a mortgage-broking business, BettyLee Finance, said she fell in love with the mansion at first sight, despite its derelict condition, and printed off a photo to stick on the wall as her dream home.

Mr Pop was initially resistant to buying a property listed for $900,000-$950,000 with smashed windows and knee-high grass, but his wife eventually convinced him they should do so.

Listing agents, First National Real Estate Belgrave and Cockatoo’s Anthony Iorlano (far left) and Mick Dolphin (far right), with new owners Ben and Betty Pop. Picture: Ian Currie.

Mr and Ms Pop will document the mansion’s transformation on social media at @cockatoomansion on Instagram, @cockatoo.mansion on TikTok and Cockatoo Mansion on Facebook. Picture: Ian Currie.

The husband and wife, who run a concrete grinding business, will tackle the home as their fifth renovation together – however, on a much larger scale than their previous efforts.

“Ben said at the start, ‘Do you know how much work there is to do?’” Ms Pop said.

“My family thought we were crazy.”

Their estimated renovation budget is $800,000-$1m and they hope it will take 18 months to finish with their team of builders and other professionals, once planning approvals are in place.

The Pops are hoping to include street art in their makeover of the mansion with a feature wall, and replicas of some existing works throughout the home. Picture: Ian Currie.

A view across the surrounding greenery from the mansion’s upper level. Picture: Ian Currie.

Ms Pop said she and her husband of 18 years were “just ordinary people” with the goal of creating an amazing residence.

She started working at 16 and later took on three jobs to pay for their first home, while Mr Pop would work 24-hour shifts.

Mr Pop described the home as their future “Toorak mansion in the bush”, and said they hoped to include a lift, rooftop garden and bar, an infinity pool and replicas of the street art around the home today.

Mr and Ms Pop have previously renovated four homes together but the Cockatoo mansion will be their biggest undertaking yet. Picture: Ian Currie.

The property has previously hosted a laser tag demonstration and was even inspected by motorcycle gangs, when it was up for sale in 2015. Picture: Ian Currie.

The pair, both from Romanian backgrounds, want to create a home to host special events with their extended families.

While Ms Pop adores the mansion, it took her months to gather courage to explore the somewhat creepy, unlit lower level which was once used as a cellar.

The couple are keen to share their renovation journey with the community via social media and less than a month after it was started their Cockatoo Mansion Instagram account has gained more than 12,000 followers.

As for who think the home is an eyesore or should be bulldozed, Ms Pop said demolishing the mansion had never crossed her mind.

“I guess what’s an eyesore to them is beautiful to me, I can see the potential in it,” she said.

“When you have property like this from 1965, why would you knock down something with so much history and so much potential?”

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Holiday marketing is shifting from years past as brands respond to tighter budgets, Gen Z influence rises and culture is shaped by hyper-specific aesthetics. From Uber’s grounded storytelling to Heinz’s nostalgia play and Meta’s AI tools, this season shows how much consumers want campaigns that feel real, useful and culturally aware. The same forces are reshaping real estate marketing, where value, emotion and clarity matter more than ever.

Victorian landlords are being urged to up rents while they can as the state works to provide better conditions for renters.

Melbourne renters are facing the prospect of paying almost $40,000 a year for a roof over their head by 2035, close to $10,000 more than is typical today.

But one of the nation’s most pre-eminent property investment groups is urging landlords to push rents even higher in a bid to recoup rising costs foisted upon them by the state government.

Rents are projected to become a battle ground between landlords and the government over the next decade as Victoria works to build enough homes to stop rental costs surging at the same time signs emerge property investors are exiting the state faster than they are buying into it.

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SQM Research founder Louis Christopher is forecasting a 2-4 per cent increase in rents across Australia’s capitals in the next year.

Mr Christopher said Melbourne might be lower, forecasting a 1-3 per cent increase for the Victorian capital as the state’s government had done more for tenants than other capitals at this point.

But the figures are not likely to hold at that level, and as more homes are built he said rents should fall back in line with their pre-pandemic trend of tracking near to 2.6 per cent in line with the Consumer Price Index.

This Tarneit home shows what you will get from Melbourne’s typical rental today, which was advertised at $585 a week in November, 2025.

In another decade’s time historic trends indicate the same address could cost $767 a week.

“It should get back to pre-Covid levels, and that will be reality in time,” Mr Christopher said.

Projected forward, the trend would raise rents for Melbourne’s typical home from $580 a week to $741, leaving tenants to find an extra $9400 a year to keep the roof over their head.

It would also lead to the number of suburbs where the typical home costs $1000 a week in rent surging from 25 today to more than 100 by 2035.

Mr Christopher advised most tenants should “seriously consider” buying a home if they could afford to. “Yes the market is going to pick up in the next year, and I think the way it’s gone for tenant’s who have turned into first-home buyers has been better over those who remained as tenants, and I don’t see that changing any time soon,” he said.

Property Investors Council of Australia chair Ben Kingsley is advising landlords to boost rental returns by 4-5 per cent as they try to recoup rising costs from the Victorian government “to get their investment back on an even keel”.

This Boronia demountable in a backyard is one of the few Melbourne homes available for $300 a week today. By 2035 it could cost almost $400.

Inside, the home offers budget accommodation.

“Where conditions are such that vacancy rates are low, we are encouraging our PICA members and all landlords to increase their rents by 4-5 per cent, while the land market conditions can accommodate it,” Mr Kingsley said.

“And if governments continue to increase taxes and increase the costs, we will go even higher to recommend 5-6 per cent.

“And we think that’s a very reasonable response to get a return on investment that we are not getting at the moment.”

PICA’s 2025 members survey attracted about 900 responses this year, with 65 per cent noting they had been able to pass on less than 10 per cent of the added costs they had faced in the past year — despite the majority of landlords surveyed having had cose increases above 11 per cent.

Not including interest, almost 270 indicated their costs had increased 11-20 per cent, while 160 encountered a 21-40 per cent increase in their costs.

At the upper end of Melbourne’s rental market, this Mt Waverley house was seeking $1500 a week in November, 2025. It’s projected to be closer to $2000 every seven days by 2035.

A two-bedroom St Kilda apartment can set you back $1500 a week today. In another ten years time, historic data suggests that figure will rise to $1965.

While increases would be hard to bear for tenants, Mr Kingsley warned over time if rents failed to keep up with costs for landlords, and yields dropped too low, a growing share would choose to sell and invest elsewhere — leading to fewer rental homes available.

“If the yield drops so low and you aren’t getting a capital growth return, then you will move on from that asset,” he said.

He pointed to Homes Victoria reports from the state’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, indicating the number of rental bonds have fallen across Victoria every quarter for the past 18 months as a sign landlords were fed up and selling.

A Victorian government spokesperson said the state was “leading the nation on renters’ rights” and that conflicting Consumer Affairs Victoria bonds data indicated the number of rental homes had risen from 732,125 to 736,352 across the past financial year.

However, it still remains below the 738,414 bonds held in the 2022-2023 financial year.

Priperty Investors Council of Australia chair Ben Kingsley is urging landlords to raise rents more, fearing that poor returns could lead to more selling and hitting the state’s rental supply.

Rental advocate and social media personality Jordan van den Lamb is hoping governments will intervene in the rental market in the nexe decade. Picture: Matt Hrkac.

This week they implemented further regulations including a ban on no-fault evictions and the final phase of a rental bidding ban intended to cement “Victoria as the best state in the nation for renters’ rights”.

The Victorian government has also set a target of building 800,000 homes by 2035, about 80,000 a year. It is currently short of that figure, with about 60,000 expected to be built across the state in 2025.

But socialist housing advocate and the man behind Australia’s shit rentals social media accounts Jordan van den Lamb said tenant households were struggling to survive, with many choosing between rent and food or medicine, and he feared increases “will be worse than the predictions”.

“You can see the household size for people who don’t own their home is increasing, so we are getting cramping of living spaces for renters as people have to rely on living with other people to be able to afford the place they rent,” he said.

Tenants Victoria chief executive Jennifer Beveridge said Victoria needed a “rent increase fairness formula” as while averages might indicate small stable increases, many tenants faced severe cases where rents rose 10, 20 or even 30 per cent.

This South Morang home is advertised for $800 a week, which could rise to $1048 a week.

“This isn’t about stopping small stable increases, but preventing the shock rent spikes that we have seen push people to the brink of homelessness,” Ms Beveridge said.

What history says your rent should be by 2035

$300 a week (2025) — $393 a week (2035)

$400 a week (2025) — $524 a week (2035)

$500 a week (2025) — $655 a week (2035)

Melbourne median house: $580 a week (2025) — $760 a week (2035)

$600 a week (2025) — $786 a week (2035)

$700 a week (2025) — $917 a week (2035)

$800 a week (2025) — $1048 a week (2035)

$900 a week (2025) — $1179 a week (2035)

$1000 a week (2025) — $1310 a week (2035)

This Moonee Ponds home is about what you get for $1000 a week in Melbourne today. That figure could be more than $300 higher by 2035.

$1200 a week (2025) — $1638 a week (2035)

$1500 a week (2025) — $1965 a week (2035)

Data reflects expected increase in rents if they continue to track historic trends in line with the 20-year average ConsumerPrice Index prior to the pandemic.

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When renter Caitlin Webster moved to Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast three months ago, she had to have a tough conversation with a mortgage broker about what homes she could actually afford.

“It’s definitely a different kind of housing market,” she said. “I think I’ve been priced out of a lot of areas I’d ideally like to be living in.”

Ms Webster had been casually going to open homes over the past 18 months to get an idea of the market. However, by the time she could afford a 20 per cent deposit, she said house prices had accelerated past what she had expected.

“I was looking to rent when I moved in to see if I liked the job and Brisbane,” she said, “but ideally I’d like to be paying off my mortgage, rather than someone else’s.”

Caitlin Webster is looking for her first home after being dropped into Brisbane’s competitive housing market, now with new expectations of what she can afford. Picture: Liam Kidston

Even with a 20 per cent deposit, financial experts at Finder found homeowners in Brisbane will often pay nearly twice the sale price of their homes over the course of their mortgage contract.

With both interest and stamp duty factored in, buyers securing a property with that deposit will end up paying around 90 per cent more for their home than the initial contract price; with a typical house at $980,000 actually costing $1.866 million over the course of a 30 year loan.

Some experts have warned this gap may be larger for people entering with a 5 per cent deposit under the First Home Guarantee Scheme, despite the government guaranteeing the remainder of a 20 per cent loan to avoid lenders’ mortgage insurance.

But renting is not safe either; PropTrack research has found the average Brisbane renter will be paying around $200 more each week within ten years.

A home such as this one in Logan Central, where the median home price is $1.12m, would mean a buyer will spend $2.225m over 30 years if buying with a 10 per cent deposit.

“The way I see this is it’s not going to be my forever home,” Ms Webster said. “I’d rather get into the market at a price that’s realistic for myself. I understand I’ll eventually get priced out [completely] with the growth that is happening.”

Ms Webster said she had been growing frustrated on homes being undervalued on websites such as realestate.com.au, where homes would sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what an agent might say they were worth.

Most recently, she said she’d found a unit in Nundah she was looking to make an offer on while it was still off-market.

“The range we were told by the agent was between $750,000 to $760,000,” she said. “I was looking at the past prices [years ago] when it was like $400,000 – but I also know if it goes on the market, it could easily get $900,000.”

Webster said she hoped to afford a unit near the city – but the only homes she could find in her price range were in need of serious renovation. Picture: Liam Kidston

But the former rental unit is in need of repair, with cracked paint, broken curtains and a broken balcony door.

“It’s a lower price off-market because it’s an older building that needs to be renovated; so if I do place an offer I should expect I should put more money down the line to make it a place I want to afford,” Ms Webster said. “If I can put in as much of a deposit as I can, with the equity and the growth I’ll [eventually] be able to buy something else.”

Buyers agent Lauren Jones said she saw a growing class divide between people inside the property market and those who couldn’t get into the market.

Lauren Jones of Lauren Jones Buyers Agency said when accounting for finances, it was important to include a buffer in expenses, to make sure you’re able to afford things outside of mortgage repayments.

“Getting in [the market] faster is advantageous, even if it’s with a lower deposit,” she said, “just because the market is moving so quickly and it’s harder to save more than what prices are going up by.”

“Just because the bank says you can lend that much money doesn’t mean you’ll be comfortable with it.”

Ms Jones added she was seeing a growing wealth divide between those inside and outside of the property market.

“It’s almost like eliminating the lower class, in a lot of senses,” she said. “Those in the property market are going to get so much wealthier because of the increases in price, whereas others might slip through the cracks.”

The post The real cost of the ‘fixer-upper’ homes first home hunters are buying appeared first on realestate.com.au.

Australian landlords are being advised to raise rents now to recoup rising holding costs, with tenants facing a $10,000-a-year hike by 2035.

Aussie landlords could be in for a $10,000 a year windfall by 2035 amid projections of a 10-year rental hike cycle that would have huge ramifications for tenants.

But a battle is looming as the nation’s pre-eminent property investor lobby group calls for landlords to push rents higher where they can to combat governments taxing them more heavily and a nationwide home building scheme aims to put the brakes on rents.

SQM Research founder Louis Christopher is forecasting a 2-4 per cent increase in rents across Australia’s capitals in the next year.

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Mr Christopher said Melbourne might be lower, forecasting a 1-3 per cent increase for the Victorian capital as the state’s government had done more for tenants than other capitals at this point.

Other cities could be much higher, with Brisbane forecast to hit 3-5 per cent uptick, and Hobart tipped for 6-10 per cent.

But the figures are not likely to hold at that level, with SQM anticipating 180,000 new dwellings to be completed nationwide in 2026 – which should do a better job of accommodating population growth than recent years.

Nationwide, the federal government is pushing to build 1.2 million new homes in a bid to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis — though fell well short of the 240,000 needed to be built in the first year of the five-year timeline set for the ambitious target.

Aussie tenants could be paying $10,000 more a year by the end of the next 10 years if historic norms continue.

Despite this, Mr Chrisopher noted most larger Australian rental markets have tracked fairly closely with the Consumer Price Index — near to 2.6 per cent, in line with the Reserve Bank’s target range for inflation.

“It should get back to pre-Covid levels, and that will be reality in time,” Mr Christopher said.

Projected forward the trend would lead to the nation’s $650 a week typical rent for a house ballooning out to $830 a week, dragging the annual cost for renters from $33,800 to almost $44,300.

Units don’t provide much relief, with the typical one today costing its resident $630 a week and likely to end the decade costing tenants $10,166 more a year than it does today.

In Sydney, leasing a house would cost $12,909 more a year and a unit an extra $12,102 over 12 months.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WHAT SYDNEY RENTERS CAN EXPECT

Brisbane tenants will be paying between $10,250 and $10,500 more for houses and units in 2035 than they are today, while Perth residents can also expect a five figure increase.

WHAT BRISBANE CAN EXPECT FROM RENTAL RISES

Melbourne would come out slightly lower with increases from $9250 to $9500 for both houses and units.

MELBOURNE’S DECADE OF RENTAL WARFARE REVEALED

Adelaide and Hobart unit renters might be in the best position in the country, with increases of just $8390 and $7906 on the cards respectively.

SQM Research director Louis Christopher has suggested renters with the ability to buy a home will be better off doing so than waiting for a decade of rent rises.

But both cities’ house rental markets will be more challenging, with a $9359 uptick likely on typical trends for Hobart, and a 9843 for Adelaide.

WHAT RENTAL INCREASES COULD MEAN FOR ADELAIDE

At the local level, the number of suburbs where the cost of renting a home costs $1000 a week is set to almost triple from 418 nationwide today, to a whopping 1193 by 2035.

While increased building should help stop rents increasing much more than this, Mr Christopher still advised tenants would be better off buying a home if they could afford it.

“If you have the opportunity to get in as a first-home buyer you should seriously look at it,” Mr Christopher said.

“Yes the market is going to pick up in the next year, but I think the way it’s gone for tenant’s who have turned into first-home buyers than has been better over those who remained as tenants, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

Property Investors Council of Australia chair Ben Kingsley said they were advising members and all landlords across the country to pursue rent rises well above CPI.

“Where conditions are such that vacancy rates are low, we are encouraging our PICA members and all landlords to increase their rents by 4-5 per cent, while the land market conditions can accommodate it,” Mr Kingsley said.

“To get their investment back on an even keel. And if governments continue to increase taxes and increase the costs, we will go even higher to recommend 5-6 per cent.

“And we think that’s a very reasonable response to get a return on investment that we are not getting at the moment.”

What your rent could be doing by 2035

$300 a week (2025) — $393 a week (2035)

$400 a week (2025) — $524 a week (2035)

$500 a week (2025) — $655 a week (2035)

Melbourne, Hobart median house: $580 a week (2025) — $760 a week (2035)

$600 a week (2025) — $786 a week (2035)

Adelaide median house: $610 a week (2025) — $799 a week (2035)

Brisbane median house: $650 a week (2025) — $852 a week (2035)

$700 a week (2025) — $917 a week (2035)

Sydney median house: $800 a week (2025) — $1048 a week (2035)

$900 a week (2025) — $1179 a week (2035)

$1000 a week (2025) — $1310 a week (2035)

$1200 a week (2025) — $1638 a week (2035)

$1500 a week (2025) — $1965 a week (2035)

$2000 a week (2025) — $2621 a week (2035)

$3500 a week (2025) — $4586 a week (2035)

Data reflects expected increase in rents if they continue to track historic trends in line with the 20-year average Consumer Price Index prior to the pandemic.

PICA’s 2025 members survey attracted about 900 responses this year, with 65 per cent noting they had been able to pass on less than 10 per cent of the added costs they had faced in the past year.

Not including interest, almost 270 indicated their costs had increased 11-20 per cent, while 160 encountered a 21-40 per cent increase in their costs.

While increases would be hard to bear for tenants, Mr Kingsley warned over time if rents failed to keep up with costs for landlords and yields dropped too low a growing share would choose to sell and put their money into more secure means of growing their wealth.

“If the yield drops so low and you aren’t getting a capital growth return, then you will move on from that asset,” Mr Kingsley said.

“It needs to be a valuable enough and attractive enough asset for you to keep money there.”

The result could be a gradual reduction in people willing to invest in property and “it will starve the market of supply”.

However he said that if government plans to boost the nation’s supply of homes did occur at levels to improve or even pause housing affordability issues, investors would struggle to raise rents.

“At the end of the day, prices will still be set by demand and supply – so if there’s a strong availability of rental accommodation, you will be hard pressed to put rents up, because the tenants will move on to cheaper rental properties,” Mr Kingsley said.

PICA chair Ben Kingsley is urging landlords to seek higher rents while they can.

With mum and dad investor’s still accounting for the majority of Australia’s rental homes, limiting their profitability to improve affordability would likely require governments at state and federal levels to tweak tax settings to keep investing attractive enough for it to continue.

The alternative was to let the free market determine rents, which would likely lead to increased housing density for renters as well as increased supply in the areas with the highest demand.

But Mr Kingsley said there were already alarm bells in two important rental markets from an investors perspective.

In the ACT he said costs, particularly land tax, for investors were so high “it’s just not worth investing in that territory”.

“It’s simply wasting money,” Mr Kingsley said.

It is also the only state in Australia that currently has a rental cap in place, barring landlords from increasing rents more than 110 per cent of CPI unless they can justify a bigger increase.

He said Victoria was also concerning, with government data showing consecutive decreases in the number of rental bonds active for the past 18 months after years of increasingly tenant-friendly legislation and regulation, as well as increased land tax costs.

Many Australian landlords are facing rising costs to hang onto homes with tenants in them, meaning both sides are grappling with price hikes.

However the flip side was also true, and states with lower regulation and where rents had surged, with “investment rolling into Western Australia and into Queensland”.

Socialist housing advocate and the man behind shitrentals.org Jordan van den Lamb said while tenant households were already struggling to survive, with many choosing between rent and food or medicine, he feared increases “will be worse than those predictions”.

“I think it’s absolutely possible we will see this happen, though I’m hoping the government will come to its senses — though there’s not currently any indication of that,” Mr van den Lamb said.

He added that while he feared sufficient action would not be taken to stop the rental rises of this magnitude, he believed the Australian government was reaching the point where it “has to respond and will respond”.

“We are seeing some governments respond to some of the most outrageous examples of slum lords,” Mr van den Lamb said.

“But you can see the household size for people who don’t own their home is increasing, so we are getting cramping of living spaces for renters as people have to rely on living with other people to be able to afford the place they rent.”

Rental advocate and social media personality Jordan van den Lamb fears historic rental increases will fall well short of reality for tenants. Picture: Matt Hrkac.

Mr van den Lamb added that with rent hikes now on the radar of the middle class as well as lower income households, particularly for those with children entering the rental market, it was likely rental costs would become increasingly high profile in the years ahead.

Scenarios like the Canberra approach of a rent cap had likely had some impact, however he warned an unintended result was that many landlords were now using that as a target and trying to increase rents by 110 per cent as a default. 

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