A private island off Tasmania’s east coast has sold after several years on the market, in a rare deal for the state’s property sector.
The 26-hectare Ram Island, a five-minute barge trip from Pontypool between Swansea and Orford, sold for around its $4.5 million-plus asking price.
Nick Morgan, a director at Peterswald, said the “incredible” sale was a once-in-a-career experience for most agents.
“Very lucky to have been involved in the sale and stoked to be able to get an outcome for the vendor,” he said.
“Unless it transacts again and [we are] lucky enough to help, then may well be the last island I sell, but we’ll see.”
Morgan said opportunities to buy a private island in Tasmania don’t come up often.
He pointed to a handful of islands in the Furneaux Group that occasionally change hands, as well as one near Coles Bay with accommodation that sold some time ago.
“Otherwise it’s sort of few and far between,” he said.
The property took nearly three years to sell under Peterswald, after previously being listed with another agency.
Morgan described the island as peaceful and unlike anything else on the market.
“You sort of go from [the Tasmanian] mainland … on a private barge across … and it’s just so peaceful obviously knowing that you’re the only folks on the island,” he said.
The previous owner bought Ram Island around 20 years ago and spent more than a decade building a bespoke home, finishing the project around 2018.
Morgan said the new buyers are mainland Australians with strong ties to Tasmania, who will be “utilising the property personally”.
He noted that ultra-wealthy buyers are increasingly snapping up second, third and even fourth homes in Tasmania, drawn by the value compared to Sydney’s prestige suburbs.
