Family set for huge payday as $65m suburb grows around them

A Western Sydney family whose homestead stood alone for years as a new suburb materialised around them could soon complete a jaw dropping windfall worth millions after deciding to finally sell.

The family’s old homestead in Leppington is currently surrounded by a new estate known as Emerald Rise and cuts a solitary figure along a road where land has been levelled to make way for new homes.

The house on Raby Rd is surrounded by 29 lots earmarked for new housing and is the last piece of what was once a vast landholding.

The property, a nine-bedroom homestead on nearly 9,300 sqm, used to be the heart of a 40-acre estate, which the family purchased in 1985 for about $266,000, records show.

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At the time, the area was little more than semirural farmland on the fringes of Sydney.

The land was rezoned in 2016 and shortly after the family negotiated the sale of most of their acreage, about 38 acres, to a major developer for an undisclosed sum likely to be millions.

That land was subdivided and carved into 29 one-acre lots and released to the market, each with a price tag of $2.2m to $2.45m.

The family held on to the portion containing the original homestead: nearly a hectare that remained untouched as bulldozers tended nearby land to prepare new roads.

It is that house that is now for sale, with selling agent Nick Alexapoulos of Raine and Horne-Gledswood Hills revealing that the family of owners will be moving on after 40 years.

It has been listed for sale with a price guide of $6.3m-$6.7m.

“It was purely commercial viability that prompted the subdivision,” Mr Alexapoulos said. “They looked at the fact they could make a substantial windfall from a subdivision.

“The original homestead was just far too nice to bulldoze so it has been left intact … It’s huge. It takes me 20 to 25 minutes to open all the blinds.”

Fifteen of the new lots have sold, generating more than $35m.

Once the remaining sites sell, the combined value of the subdivided land will exceed $65m — almost 300 times what the family originally paid for the entire estate.

“People have been buying the new blocks and will be building substantial homes,” Mr Alexapoulos said.

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He said the incredible rises in the value of land in Leppington followed the area’s transformation from paddocks into one of Sydney’s fast-growing residential pockets.

The sale has attracted a mixed response on social media.

“(It) would’ve been nice couple years ago before they sold off all the surrounding land around the property now it’s one big construction site with 100 homes going beside it,” a Facebook user said.

Others were more positive, with one calling the home “breathtaking”.

The home has multiple resort-style living zones, a pool, ponds, four-car garage and a billiard room.

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