Sydney auctions: bidders pay $500k over reserve for series of drab homes
Rundown homes requiring major renos are scoring big prices, even as agents warn the prospect of a rate hike could squeeze the market.
Rundown homes requiring extensive renovations or a complete knockdown-down-rebuild have scored some of the biggest results at auction this week.
Agents were initially unsure what to expect from sales this week given stronger than expected inflation had raised the prospect of another rate hike.
This level of uncertainty had pushed down buyer demand many times in the past. But it seemed most properties scheduled to go to auction sold successfully, with agents revealing many of the bidders registering for sale had been looking for homes for months.
“They just want to get on with it,” said auctioneer Andrew Cooley.
One of the standout sales over the weekend was for a dated three-bedroom house in North Ryde. The property went to auction with a reserve price of $2m but sold for $520,000 higher. Nine bidders registered for the auction with Stone Real Estate, mostly renovators. The $2.52m price for the Ford St house was about $5000 above the highest offer made by the underbidder, also a renovator.
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Auctioneer Michael Garofolo said the new buyer revealed they planned to do a “substantial renovation” before moving in.
“You’d have to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars at least to bring the house back up to a modern standard,” Mr Garofolo said.
Further south, in Belfield, another dated house – one that hadn’t changed hands for 62 years – sold for $1.74m. It was $140,000 over reserve.
Agent Rick Pignetti of Ray White Concord said the new owners of the Scott St property had told him they wanted to knock the original house down and start again.
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“A modern house on that site could probably sell for about $3.2-$3.3m in this market,” Mr Pignetti said, adding that the home had originally been packed full of items.
“There was about 62 years’ worth of stuff in there,” he said. “It was a very emotional sale for the family. It was their father’s home and they had grown up there.”
The auctioneer, Alex Pattaro, received bids from five out of the seven registered parties.
“It’s actually a good time to be selling houses like these right now, even though people are a bit unsure about rates, because there isn’t much else up for sale,” Mr Pignetti said. “Many of the buyers who are looking are the emotional buyers who want to buy quickly.”
There was a similar result in Ermington. An older house on Hilder Rd requiring some works attracted 13 bidders and sold for $2.5m - just shy of $500,000 over the 2021 price. Mr Garofolo, also the auctioneer for this property, said the owner did “nothing” to the property in the three years.
In Sydney’s south, a tired four-bedroom house in the suburb Kareela, which had last changed hands in 1993 for $136,000, resold at auction on Saturday for $1.92m.
The price for the house on Mercedes Place, a coveted cul de sac in the area, was $70,000 over reserve. Five bidders registered for the auction with sales agent Andrew Bloom of Sanders.
Auctioneer Andrew Cooley, the director of Avenue Auctions, said the property was popular because homes in the area rarely came up for sale. The new buyer is understood to be planning a renovation.
In nearby Menai, a house with a basketball court in the backyard sold under the hammer for $2.52m. Eight parties registered to bid with Ray White agent Matt Debreczeni.
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Originally published as Sydney auctions: bidders pay $500k over reserve for series of drab homes