Melbourne farm that cost $870 to sell for up to $50 million

A humble farming family is set to pocket tens of millions of dollars for a piece of land their parents bought for just 500 pounds, thanks to Melbourne’s urban sprawl.

The Troutbeck family’s Mickleham dairy farm — a prized swath of land in Melbourne’s outer north — will hit the market in a fortnight.

Comparable sales suggest it could fetch as much as $50 million.

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Edward, Garry and Keith Troutbeck — who grew up on the 25.8ha property at 1630 Mickleham Rd with sister Judith and late brother Graeme — say their late parents bought the farm 83 years ago.

Its sale, sparked by their deaths, would be tinged with sadness but “life changing”.

Just don’t expect the brothers to opt for the high life.

The 25.8ha property features dozens of cattle, vintage cars and tractors, and a house trucked down the Tullamarine Freeway in the ‘60s. Picture: Alex Coppel.

“We’ll still be farming … further out where it’s quieter,” Edward, 82, says.

“The only thing (the sale) will do is make life easier.”

The siblings’ parents Hutton and Isabel paid 500 pounds (about AU$870) for the property in 1935, a few months before they married.

Mickleham was then a small township of mostly dairy farmers with just a general store, post office, church and school.

“The neighbours all knew each other,” Edward says.

The Troutbeck brothers, Garry, Keith and Edward, on their Mickleham farm, which is about to hit the market. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Garry, who has lived on the farm his entire 78 years, recalled riding his push bike home from school and “not seeing a car”.

“The city’s caught up with our land now,” he says.

Keith, 70, said the pending sale would be “life-changing” but also “very sad”.

An asking price is yet to be set for the property, which contains dozens of cattle, vintage cars and tractors.

The lovingly worn family house was trucked there “down the Tullamarine Freeway” in the 1960s.

Developer Deague Group recently snapped up 45.6ha of neighbouring land for $86 million, or $1.89 million per ha.

The property is one of the last remaining pieces of land yet to be snapped up by developers in the “Craigieburn West Precinct Structure Plan”. Picture: Alex Coppel.

If this rate was applied to the Troutbeck farm, it would equate to almost $49 million.

A developer also paid about $2.48 million per ha for a 2.14ha block in nearby Greenvale this month.

Jason Real Estate director Jason Sassine — who will be accepting offers on the property until early October — says big-time developers Stockland, Pask Group, Peet and Villawood each own land in the neighbourhood.

The property is likely to yield about 347 lots and is due to be rezoned for residential development as part of the “Craigieburn West Precinct Structure Plan”.

Sassine says developers have been sinking cash into Melbourne’s northern fringe for 15 years, but there has recently been “a huge land price boost”.

Development expert Gerard Coutts says greenfield land prices across the city have doubled in the past 12-18 months as local and offshore developers responded to demand for more housing amid Melbourne’s population boom.

This article from the Herald Sun originally appeared as “Mickleham dairy farm now a property goldmine, thanks to urban sprawl”.