Real estate frenzy over gutted 1920s cottage

Auctions were jam-packed on Saturday with 58 bidders for this dilapidated New Farm shack with no access to power and no back door.

Brisbane’s property market exploded into a buying frenzy with an uninhabitable dump and a murder house going under the hammer for over $2m as agents warn buyers to get in quick. Auctions were jam-packed yesterday with 58 bidders for the dilapidated New Farm shack, with no access to power and no back door.

Damien Zullo of Z Corp Developments bought the 570 sqm property and will redevelop it into two homes.

City agents say now is the time to buy, before international buyers take hold of the market.

The 1920s cottage at 49 Browne Street, New Farm had three rows of bidder registrations with crowds gathering over an hour before the auction began, on a street where the record house price is $3.2 million.

49 Browne Street, New Farm Auction. Pic: Annette Dew

A total of 77 properties went to auction across Greater Brisbane yesterday, with bidders active across all price brackets.

Veteran agents say they have never seen auctions attract so many bidders.

But frustration is building among homebuyers as properties sell within days of being listed for prices they would not have achieved months earlier.

“Three times it has happened that I go to the first open home and the very next day I’m told to put in an offer by 4pm as the house is going to sell,” investor Jill Hrstich said during the auction of 44 Cowper Street, Bulimba which was brought forward a week due to demand and sold for $990,000.

“It is so difficult and I feel sorry for young people buying in this market.”

49 Browne Street, New Farm.

An Annerley home on the market for the first time in almost 80 years, had 43 registered bidders and sold for $1.3 million, while 137 Yabba Street, Ascot sold for $3 million through Place Bulimba.

A prestige Ascot home at the centre of a scandalous 1950s murder case sold for $2.25 million.

Further south, Queensland’s most popular property to go to auction yesterday was a southern Gold Coast home at Palm Beach, which sold for $1.36 million after just eight days on the market.

The new owners plan to knock it down and rebuild.

Auctioneer Bruce Wilson at 49 Browne Street, New Farm Auction. Pic: Annette Dew

“In 25 years I’ve never seen this many people line up to register,” Ray White auctioneer Haesley Cush said.

“There was a line down the hallway,” he said about the Annerley auction.

“I remember last year saying to Queenslanders, we are such good value, just expect that you’re going to have more competition next year. Well here it is.

“In this market, yes it’s more than yesterday but it’s cheaper than tomorrow. And you have to consider affordability rather than price.

“And there’s going to come a time, as Brisbane starts to attract international attention, if we’ve got the casino, if we get the Olympics, our property prices are going to be very attractive to international buyers.”