EXCLUSIVE

The ambassador to the United States Joe Hockey and his investment banker wife Melissa Babbage look like they are settling into Washington’s diplomatic life for the foreseeable future given they have decided to list their Sydney home in the exclusive suburb of Hunters Hill.

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

In 2015, two months after he was dumped as treasurer, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull offered Hockey the key diplomatic posting to the US and the Hockeys took up residence in the historic American colonial-style residence known as “White Oaks” in Washington DC the following year.

Hockey and Babbage last year offered their Sydney home as a short-term executive rental for about $4000 a week, but after a brief return home for New Year’s Eve they decided to sell it instead.

Selling agent Brad Pillinger​, of Pillingers, who sold it to the couple in 2004, is asking for more than $8 million.

“Te Roma” was built in 1905 and is set behind a high sandstone wall on more than 1400 square metres. It has been renovated by heritage architect firm Clive Lucas Stapleton and includes four bedrooms, formal living and dining rooms, a separate study, media room, landscaped gardens, a cabana, swimming pool and spa.

As treasurer, Mr Hockey took a keen interest in property prices and local real estate matters.

At one stage he was accused of being out of touch with the plight of most Australians after he suggested first-home buyers just needed “a good job that pays good money” to break into the housing market. At the time the median house price in Sydney had just topped $1 million.

And in 2015 he took exception on radio to the “spurious” grounds on which Chinese businessman Sam Guo was granted Foreign Investment Review Board approval to buy the historic mansion Windermere – also in Hunters Hill – in 2014 for $11.45 million.

That approval was based on Mr Guo’s undertaking to add to the existing housing stock by building a new residence on the double block, but that second residence was later revealed to simply be a granny flat.

Mr Guo hit back claiming through his lawyer that he had “made arrangement[s] to redevelop the site and to commence construction next month”. It remains unknown if any development was undertaken.

Hockey and Babbage have been off-loading much of their real estate portfolio in recent years.

Most recently, Babbage sold their Canberra residence in Forrest for $1,515,000 in 2016, well up on the $320,000 she paid for the well-known “frat house” in 1997.

The last of Hockey’s cattle farm holdings in Malanda, north of Cairns, was sold in 2016 for $1.25 million, doubling the $625,000 he paid for it in 2003.

Babbage retains ownership of their beachside holiday home on the South Coast in Stanwell Park, which they bought in $782,500 in 2002. It is rented for $1900 a week.

Plugger scores in Southern Highlands

Swans legend Tony “Plugger” Lockett and his wife Vicki have sold their Southern Highlands property Roscoe Park with records revealing the buyer is Michelle Cameron, wife of Suncorp chief executive Michael Cameron.

The sale price remains unknown, but Duncan Hill of his eponymous agency was asking $4.6 million throughout the sales campaign that started last September.

The former home of Tony Lockett at Roscoe Park. Photo: Supplied

Michael Cameron, who took up the insurer’s top job in late 2015, has been a Walsh Bay local since 2014 when he and his wife paid $5.7 million for an apartment, off-loading their Longueville home at the same time for $7.25 million.

Lockett’s decision to downsize from the family home follows his historic return to the Swans as a specialist coach.

The 40-hectare property with equestrian facilities and a man-made lake last traded in 1999 for $1.2 million.