Buyer pays $71K over reserve for Geelong West house in shocking state of disrepair
A Geelong West house in such a state of disrepair that buyers thought bows in the walls were the trick of a camera lens has smashed its reserve price by $71,000.
A Geelong West house in such a state of disrepair that buyers thought bows in the walls were a trick of a camera lens has smashed its reserve price by $71,000.
The weatherboard house at 68 Collins St was in pretty bad shape when Barry Plant, Highton agent Kieron Hunter offered the property.
He said it was in “shocking” shape.
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“From one end of the house to the other was probably about half a metre out. Like, the walls were bowed. I took some photos and sent them to people and they asked is that the lens? and I said no, that’s the wall,” Mr Hunter said.
“And plaster was missing off the walls and stuff — it was in disrepair. It would have cost a significant amount of money (to repair).”
Mr Hunter said the house was unoccupied and had been used for storage.
“The kitchen and bathroom, they were reasonably functional but when you broke it down you figured out it probably needed a new roof, restumping, rip all the plaster off, change the weatherboards, it was just pretty much pull it back to the frame and when you look at the frame it wasn’t worth saving anyway.
“It looked like it could be saved, but when you drilled down it was like, nah.”
But Mr Hunter said 26 buyers had registered for the online auction this week.
“Four were viewers, so 22 signed up to bid and nine participated,” Mr Hunter said.
The house, on a 250sq m corner block near Pakington Strand, sold for $371,000, a land rate of $1484 per square metre.
“It didn’t have a heritage overlay, so you could knock it over. Obviously, that’s pretty rare,” Mr Hunter said.
“There was a lot of people that did want to renovate it and to be fair they probably kicked off the auction, but I think the top three bidders were considering to knock it over.
“I don’t know what (the winning bidder) wants to do, whether to go traditional or modern, and I don’t think they’ve made their mind up yet, but it would suit that.
At 250sq m, you’d probably go a double-storey townhouse. And it’s a good spot, a north-facing block and everything.”
Originally published as Buyer pays $71K over reserve for Geelong West house in shocking state of disrepair