Neighbours ‘superfan’ buys second Ramsay Street home

Australian businessman Andrew Whitney must be one of soap opera Neighbours’ biggest fans. He’s just splashed out over 800,000 Australian Dollars on his second house located on the cul-de-sac made famous by the 28-year-old saga.

The 37-year-old has obtained 3 Pin Oak Court at an auction last week for $867,000. While Pin Oak Court will mean little to most people, for diehard fans of Neighbours they know it better as the exterior settings for all the key houses within the fictional Ramsay Street in the equally fictional suburb of Erinsborough.

The real location, in Vermont South, had a reserve of $740,000 which was met within minutes of the auction starting report The Australian Times.

Whitney told the publication, “I was so nervous. I know the street better than anyone. I record every episode of Neighbours.”

On screen the house is 30 Ramsay Street which has seen such illustrious residents as snobby teacher Dorothy Burke, teenager Toby Mangle and current long running occupant Jarrod ‘Toadfish’ Rebecchi.

For Whitney – who currently is located in the UK – however this isn’t a new venture. The house is the second on the street he has purchased. Back in 1997 he bought 6 Pin Oak Court. At the latest sale over 150 fans of the soap attended the auction.

The Yorkshire-based businessman was awake at 3am for the auction, and said that he had been incredibly nervous while monitoring proceedings from his home with a friend the Australian Times notes.

There is little opportunity to buy into your favourite saga in the UK with EastEnders, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Coronation Street all produced on studio back-lots, however fans of Brookside have, since 2011, been able to buy or rent the 10 houses that formed the Brookside Close cul-de-sac near Liverpool.

Fans of Emmerdale Farm also have the opportunity to visit the village location of Esholt- and have a drink in The Woolpack – which was used for exterior shots up until the 1990s when the fake facades were created for the show, although Elsholt looks quite different to the current Emmerdale village – while some still check-in to the Penns Hall Hotel near Birmingham due to its appearance as the Crossroads Motel, although the interior looks nothing like the motel studio sets.

[Reported by Mike Watkins]