Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins buys East Ryde home

Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins­ has bought back into the Sydney property market, nine months after her split from purple Wiggle­ Lachlan Gillespie.

She’s spent $1.3 million on a 1960s home overlooking bushland in East Ryde.

Watkins and Gillespie had lived in a Wollstonecraft apartment which they offloaded last year for $2.05 million, before they announced they were going their separate ways after a five-year relationship.

The former couple have remained good friends and helped out on the Gold Telethon for the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation last week.

The East Ryde home is set on a sprawling 1330sqm block with gardens­ including a rockery garden.

Described as having a beach house-like style, it has three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

BresicWhitney Hunters Hill agents Allister Scott and Kathleen Synnott marketed it as being suitable to live in now and redevelop to create a dream home.

Scott says that more and more younger buyers are purchasing at East Ryde due to its close proximity to the city.

“Buyers see how much the suburb is developing with new homes going up and renovations taking place and feel there is a real investment to the community,” he said.

The home spent six months on the market, seeking $1.55 million with a different agent late last year.

It’s not far from where Watkins grew up. Last year her parents, Rick and Kathryn, sold the Ryde family home they owned since the 1980s for $1.6 million to make a tree-change to the Southern Highlands.

This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.