5 hours Ago By James MacSmith
Are these Australia’s most stubborn neighbours. Picture: Channel 7 A stubborn Aussie family who hit the headlines after turning down big money offers for their beloved family home are back in the spotlight. The plight of the Zammit family, who have rebuffed mega offers of as much as $50m for their prized land, are receiving world-wide support from others who have butted heads with developers.
A year ago the Zammit family from Quakers Hill in Sydney’s north west caught world wide attention when they declined to sell their 20,000 sqm parcel of land to developers who had purchased all the land around them. MORE: Isla Fisher’s post-divorce setback You can always hold out for a better price. Picture: Channel 7 The family had received offers of up to $50m to sell their home to complete the new development named The Ponds, but turned them down.
The Zammits continue to hold firm despite the fact Sydney and Australia’s skyrocketing home prices could turn them into instant millionaires if they took the money on offer. Now, others who have been in similar positions are backing the Zammits to the hilt and have warned that there could be an unexpected downside if they do take the money and run. A Facebook post on Thursday hailed the Zammit family as a “symbol of uniqueness and resistance in the neighbourhood”, to which many respondents agree.
“So beautiful” was a comment from many posters. Others were more forthright. “My dad was like that for years,” one Facebook user posted.
“He and my mum gave some land [away] for a soccer field, as their grandson played soccer. The guy who made the [deal], sat on it. “The council wanted to build homes on my dad’s land so they could apply a city tax.
“Evil. Horrible people. “The land went back to my brother.
” In Quaker’s Hill the development has gone ahead all around the Zammits while their property remained intact. However that hasn’t deterred some developers who continue to reach out to the family with offers reportedly to now be close to $60m, meaning the family have possibly earned another $10m or 20 per cent over the past year. According to PropTrack, home prices in Quakers Hill have risen 8,5 per cent over the past 12 months, which would have earned the Zammits at least another $4.
25m. The family had actually considered selling as far back as 2015, when they would have received a fraction of that potential $60m. Around a decade ago, the median home price in Quakers Hill hovered at around $700,000.
It is now $1.172m. A rise of more than two-thirds or 67 per cent.
MORE: Insane amount of cash Kyle Sandilands dropped in LA It’s good to have a bit of space between you and neighbours. Picture: Channel 7 Who doesn’t want a nice, long driveway? Picture: Channel 7 Could maybe improve its kerb appeal. Picture: Channel 7 And that is without their seemingly already faultless whip hand.
Last year, one of the property’s owners, Diane Zammit, 50, told news.com.au , said the neighbourhood used to be “farmland dotted with little red brick homes and cottages” where space was aplenty.
“Every home was unique and there was so much space – but not any more. It’s just not the same,” she said. The property boasts a lush green lawn in stark contrast to all the sites around it and also a huge 200 metre driveway.
But just metres away are rows and rows of carbon copy grey houses crammed into tight blocks as part of a major development. MORE: Secret war to transform Sydney’s favourite pubs I’m off to the neighbours to get some sugar, see you tomorrow. Picture: Channel 7 The Zammit home is surrounded.
Picture: Channel 7 How it used to look. Picture: Channel 7 The high-density neighbouring homes are built right up to the fence of the property, and neighbours reportedly don’t want the owners to sell as they like living in a cul-de-sac. It’s estimated 50 houses could fit on the block of land if they followed the same style as other developer homes in the area.
A local real estate agent previously praised the Zammit family for staying put, despite the big payouts they have likely been offered. “The fact that most people sold out years and years ago, these guys have held on. All credit to them,” Ray White Quakers Hill agent Taylor Bredin told 7News.
MORE: Abandoned TikTok mansion in $8m deal “Depending on how far you push the development plan, you’d be able to push anywhere from 40 to 50 properties on something like this, and when subdivided, a 300 square metre block would get a million dollars.”.
