US ambassador Joe Hockey and his wife, investment banker Melissa Babbage, are not due back in Sydney any time soon, but they’ve bought their next historic Hunters Hill home for when they do.

Close to $8 million has exchanged in Babbage’s name on the 1874-built residence known as Wybalena House in Hunters Hill.

The purchase marks a return to their riverfront neighbourhood, given their current sales campaign to sell their nearby Federation residence “Te Roma” also in Hunters Hill.

A caveat lodged on the title of the Harty family home late on Friday revealed the Hockeys purchase of the property, which was recently sold by Christie’s International agents Darren Curtis and Martin Ross.

The exact sale price remains undisclosed but sources say the Harty home sold well above the $7.5 million bottom line, for closer to $8 million.

The grand sandstone residence was built for Hunters Hill mayor and steamboat proprietor Charles Jeanneret for his wife Julia Ann and their 11 children, and became one of more than a dozen such villas built by him on the peninsula.

The late 2GB radio presenter Frank Sturge Harty and his wife Delphine bought the property in 1982 for $650,000, and it was returned to the market following the death of Delphine Harty two years ago, aged 105.

The Hockeys have brought forward the expressions of interest deadline on the sale of their former home to March 1 through Brad Pillinger, of Pillingers, with buyers expected to pay more than $8 million.

The Hockeys have been based in Washington since he was appointed to the plum diplomatic posting in 2016, where he currently resides in the historic American colonial-style residence known as “White Oaks”.

The couple have remained one of the peninsular suburb’s most high-profile residents since they bought their former Federation mansion 14 years ago for $3.5 million. At the time Hockey was a federal Liberal MP in the Howard government.