A recent study showed more Australians prefer to rent than to buy, but it seems to be an altogether different situation for the couple who paid $57.5m for Australia's most expensive home.
 
The mining magnate couple, Chris and Tia Ellison, spent an additional $11.6m this year to buy the neighbouring houses as well.
 
The couple first purchased a four-bedroom, non-waterfront house of iron heiress Angela Bennett for more than $6.6m in May. Another non-waterfront five-bedroom home was bought in August for $5m, securing a “family compound”.
 
The latest acquisitions stretched Ellisons' total land holding to 9,159 square metres and their total outlay to just shy of $70m, Stuff.co.nz reported.
 
To date, the couple's combined estate now amounts to more than three times the size of Altona in Sydney's Point Piper, which was sold for $52m last year, and more than four times the size of the former Baillieu family estate in Melbourne's Toorak, which traded for $24m in 2010. 

Collections: