Christine Lacy
November 13, 2026 — 5:00am
How do you buy or sell a house in a tanking market when you’re a notable someone, but would rather your financial affairs fly under the radar? Quietly, of course.
Just ask former Victorian premier Dan Andrews, who in recent weeks has flogged his and wife Catherine’s family home in Mulgrave for $1.75 million.
Hoping no one would notice, the Andrews listed their four-bedder with a pool with an obscure real estate agent in Springvale, iSell Group, which has sold about 80 homes this year. Absent was any marketing campaign, although the home did turn up in mid-October on a website called quietlistings.com.au.
The couple are still on the title as the home’s owners and there is no evidence they’ve bought something else.
ARN’s newest recruit, radio host Carrie Bickmore, is trying to go undetected in the Melbourne market too, having just put down fresh roots in Eaglemont, a small suburb about 10 kilometres north-east of the Melbourne CBD.
Under her married name, Bickmore in late September took ownership of a $2.35 million family home in Eaglemont (no mortgage required), which is just around the corner from a $9.1 million pile that she used to own with her former partner Chris Walker. Bickmore now owns that house in her own right following the demise of their relationship in early 2023.
Walker, with whom Bickmore shares two daughters, also has a family home nearby in the small suburb, having paid $3.22 million for a four-bedroom house with a pool in late 2024.
Bickmore’s husband Greg Lange, with whom she had a son, died from brain cancer in 2010. The media personality has made sure she is well advised in her financial affairs.
Directors on the board of her charity Carrie’s Beanies for Brain Cancer, include former senator, Australian diplomat and gender equality advocate Natasha Stott Despoja, former advertising executive and ex-Qantas director Todd Sampson and media exec Gemma O’Neill, who is also a close friend and business partner of Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, who’s sued Bickmore’s new employer in the Federal Court.
Meanwhile in Brighton, Sam Wood, who has been charged with domestic violence-related offences and is languishing in Wolston Correctional Centre in south-west Brisbane awaiting his next application for bail in the Court of Appeal, is flogging his redundant $7 million pile. Alas, much of the proceeds from any sale won’t go to the disgraced personal trainer and his wife and alleged victim Snezana Wood.
The house, which the couple bought in January, is mortgaged to ANZ, but CBD can reveal that a fresh caveat has been slapped on the home by a finance company called CampaignAgent, which is owned by REA Group.
The company lends money to vendors to fund the likes of a sales campaign for a house and pre-sale works. The Woods undertook an extensive cosmetic renovation of their five-bedroom home, which they never lived in, before it was listed for sale.
A source connected to CampaignAgent, but not authorised to speak on the record, said the lender did not routinely register an actual caveat over a property it had lent against.
They said it would only be done “in certain circumstances, like if a borrower fails to repay or other circumstances under the agreement that put repayment at risk”.
In the case of the Woods, ANZ would have claim over proceeds of any sale, while Campaign Agent would rank second.
Daniel Andrews, Bickmore’s manager Aran Michael and CampaignAgent were all contacted for comment.
Kooyong serves up another loss as CEO hunt narrows
We told you earlier this week how the search for a new face to run the elite, but trouble-plagued, Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club was coming down to the wire. Now we can show you the loss-making operation a new boss will inherit.
Contenders for the top job, which CBD understands include former Australian Grand Prix Corporation boss Andrew Westacott and almost 30-year former Tennis Australia executive Karen Clydesdale, will be pouring over the just-released financial results for the sporting club, sent to members this week.
Under chair and acting boss Steve Wood, it’s another bottom-line loss of $513,000 for the 134-year-old institution, which compares with a loss just shy of $1 million in 2025.
Revenue is up 20 per cent to $23.8 million, but administrative costs have jumped by almost 50 per cent. In part, that’s thanks to a one-off $800,000 cost associated with the failed attempt to buy the Vision Australia site, which is now likely to be sold to Scotch College.
The club has also had to make an almost $900,000 provision for the under underpayment of its kitchen staff, which remains under investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
In 2027, Wood will slug the club’s 9500-odd members with a 10 per cent hike in fees. The annual fee for a playing member will be $2156, plus an entry fee of $6468 for new members.
Along with trying to make the club profitable, the new boss will also have to deal with renegotiating the institution’s $11.8 million in debt to the Commonwealth Bank, which has just been rolled over for another year, but which expires at the end of December next year.
All this comes as an election is underway to fill three seats on the club’s board, with its annual meeting to be held in the last week of November.
Black, White and Royal Blue
Where else would mad Pie and wannabe Victorian premier Jess Wilson launch the Liberal Party campaign to win the November 28 election but at the Collingwood Football Club headquarters?
We hear that Wilson, who holds Kew on a margin of 4.7 per cent, and her supporters will gather at KGM Centre at Olympic Park on Sunday, not dressed in black and white, but instead in the conservatives’ royal blue to officially kick off her push to be premier.
The Age has confirmed the Liberal Party booking was made directly with The Big Group, which manages The Glasshouse at the centre.
It’s a bold political choice. While Wilson’s fandom is a deep family tradition passed down from her father - former Liberal MP Ron Wilson - and grandfather, the Pies, are polarising.
Oh, she’ll be hoping the premiership’s a cakewalk.
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Source: The Age · Christine Lacy
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