By Tom Carey
A mature-age couple at auction on Saturday blew away the reserve price for a three-bedroom East Melbourne house that they will use as their base when they visit the city.
The successful buyers paid $2.64 million for the property at 26-28 Simpson Street.
It was one of 715 auctions scheduled in Melbourne on Saturday. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 58.6 per cent from 519 reported results, while 65 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
One other couple were the only underbidders at the East Melbourne auction. Caine Real Estate listing agent and auctioneer Toby Campbell said that it was a slow auction, but the buyers made bids between $20,000 and $40,000.
“It was just the timing of each [bid], it was also raining and I was standing out in the rain. I was hoping it would hurry people up, but it didn’t,” Campbell said.
The auction opened on a vendor bid, at the bottom of the quoted price range of $2.3 million to $2.5 million. The reserve price was $2.4 million.
“Everything’s perfectly positioned. If you want to do a renovation on it, you only need to redo the kitchen and the bathroom,” he said.
“It had a really great courtyard as well.”
The vendors have retired and planned to move away from Melbourne.
In Strathmore, a vendor-builder sold a new four-bedroom house in post-auction negotiations for $2.3 million to a local young family. Records show that the vendors had bought the property at 64 Strathnaver Avenue in 2018 for $1.2 million.
Only one buyer showed interest in the house on Saturday. A local family made the only bid of the auction at $2.1 million. The auction was passed in and the family entered negotiations with the vendors.
The buyer agreed to pay $200,000 more than their original bid to meet the vendor’s reserve price. The reserve price was at the top of the quoted price range of $2.1 million to $2.3 million.
Matthews auctioneer and listing agent John Matthews said the family were attracted to the property primarily for its zoning to local schools.
“They love the size of the house, the pool, the parkland at the back, zoning for schools,” he said.
“They took the opportunity to snap it up on the day.”
In Fitzroy, a three-bedroom townhouse that was formerly a rental property was sold at auction on Saturday for $1.56 million.
Two couples competed for the property at 1/18 Hanover Street. The underbidders were a first-home buyer. The purchasers were local, but the underbidders were trying to move to Melbourne.
The auction opened at the bottom of the quoted price range, $1.47 million to $1.6 million. Nelson Alexander Fitzroy listing agent and auctioneer Mark Verrocchi said bidding was competitive. The property sold for $10,000 more than the reserve price.
“I thought it was going to kick a little bit more, but it’s a sign of the times,” he said. “It’s a good result.”
The vendor of the property lives in the United Kingdom. They listened to the auction on their phone.
In Cremorne, three local families competed for a three-bedroom townhouse that sold at auction on Saturday for $1.15 million.
The property at 22/96 Gwynne Street was on the market for $950,000, within the quoted price range of $900,000 to $1 million. The eventual purchaser started bidding at $915,000. Buyers offered $10,000 and $20,000 increments in the auction.
“The vendor put a lot of work in, as far as the presentation they’ve done,” said Buxton Stonnington listing agent Harley Toyle.
The auction took place indoors to avoid a downpour. A crowd of 30 people watched.
AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said that the Melbourne property market was experiencing a bleak winter.
Oliver said that the clearance rate this month has been well down on the average from July last year.
“Sales are pretty soft, so you’ve got this combination of low sales levels and soft and declining auction clearances, which all up suggests a fairly weak market,” he said.
“It looks to me that high interest rates are continuing to bear down on the Melbourne property market.”