Rent a slice of TV history

The almost nondescript Concord cottage that was home to the young ones from Channel 7’s Packed to the Rafters has been available for rent.

It came on at $1200 and was available at $1000 a week through Daniella Ianni at Time Realty Five Dock inconjunction with Alex Pattaro at LJ Hooker. The listing has since been removed from realestate.com.au.

The three-bedroom Sydney inner-west house, which was leased for several years by Channel 7, passed in at its 2012 auction, but after a renovation behind its Californian bungalow facade, it sold recently at $1,535,000 to Chinese/Australian investors. It last sold for $1 million in 2006.

Of course Riverview Street, Concord, wasn’t ever the equivalent of Melbourne’s Ramsay Street (the Neighbours location in Vermont South’s Pin Oak Court).

Packed To The Rafters premiered on Channel Seven in August 2008 and was often the Tuesday night highest rating show. The series follows the lives and challenges confronting the Rafter family, headed by the parents Julie (Rebecca Gibney) and Dave (Erik Thomson).

Ready to become “empty-nesters’’ after 25 years of marriage, the couple were forced to put their plans on hold when their two eldest children – Rachel (Jessica Marais) and Nathan (Angus McLaren) – move home. Their youngest son, Ben (Hugh Sheridan), rented the nominal home next door with housemates Nick (George Houvardas) and Melissa (Zoe Ventoura).

There where replicas of their houses at the Channel 7 production studios. Channel 7 initially took a three-year rental on the Rafter family home on Riverview Street and kept it vacant. Title Tattle recalls its 2008 asking rental was $600 a week.

Words: Jonathan Chancellor, www.propertyobserver.com.au