By Melissa Heagney
A beautifully renovated three-bedroom Edwardian house in West Footscray sold for $1.355 million on Saturday, shortly after it was passed in on a $1.3 million bid.
A crowd gathered for the auction of 34 Glamis Road, but only two parties, both young families, competed for the 538-square metre block.
Auctioneer Terry Fitzpatrick was met with silence when he asked for an opening offer for the West Footscray home.Credit: Jason South
Reside Real Estate Melbourne auctioneer Terry Fitzpatrick was met with silence when he called for an opening bid. He waited for the “obligatory minute” before making a vendor bid of $1.27 million, well below the $1.3 million to $1.325 million price guide.
Eventually, one family made a $1.28 million bid, before the second upped the offer to $1.285 million, and they retaliated with a $1.3 million offer, at which the property was passed in.
The highest bidders, who were renting locally after selling their own property, then increased their offer in post-auction negotiations to the $1.355 million sale price.
Reside Real Estate director Marty Rankin said it was a good outcome for the vendors who had owned the property for 10 years and renovated it over that time.
Rankin said buyers were holding back due to the cooling market and expectations for another rate rise, the sixth this year, on Tuesday.
“It’s a case of everyone’s kind of factoring in their [mortgage] serviceability now,” Rankin said. “People have been sitting on their hands as they realise ... they’re not able to borrow as much.
“They’re forced into being more conservative with their offers,” he said.
Young families were interested in buying the home.Credit: Jason South
The West Footscray auction was one of 735 scheduled across the city, as volumes bounced back after the quiet long weekend, when just 97 auctions were scheduled.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 63.6 per cent from 541 reported results, while 59 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
A young couple were the winning bidders on a stylishly renovated house in Hughesdale, which had gained a following on Instagram, and sold for $2.126 million, above the $1.8 million to $1.9 million guide.
Ray White Carnegie selling agent Jin Ling said the Instagram page for the home had shown buyers how much work went into renovating and extending the four-bedroom house at 22 Bowmore Street.
“A lot of people are now following the account, and it gave them an appreciation of all the work that went into the home,” Ling said.
The buyers were one of six bidders at the auction, and the bidding dropped to $1000 increments before the winning bid was made.
The vendors, Lee Vella, a joiner and furniture maker, and his photographer wife, Sarah Godenzi, were thrilled with the outcome.
“We bought the house in early 2019, and we spent about 12 months renovating the existing property with the intention of extending it,” Vella said.
Godenzi said they were now looking for another project, despite some difficulties with their latest renovation.
“I think we might have forgotten all the bad stuff pretty quickly,” Godenzi laughed. “But we were really surprised by how much people loved seeing behind-the-scenes; people love to see the pain.”
The couple was thrilled with the sale, particularly as the market had slowed.
“In the current market, you just can’t pick what’s going to happen because you’re just not sure what people are going to pay,” Vella said.
On the other side of the city, a four-bedroom house at 27 Shiers Street, Alphington, sold for $2.31 million, after three bidders competed.
Bidding opened on a $2 million offer, before a flurry of bids took it to its sale price.
The vendors, who had owned the property for just three years, paid $1,836,275 for the home, records show, making a tidy profit in the sale.
Jellis Craig Inner North director and auctioneer Sam Rigopoulos said it was a nice result, and noted there was a packed street during the auction, showing buyers still keen to get their perfect family home.
In Port Melbourne, a home that had been owned by the same family for 117 years, sold to a couple for $1.354 million.
The house at 128 Farrell Street, had been owned for three generations, with the family first buying the two-bedroom, single-fronted terrace in 1905.
Simon Graf Real Estate’s Simon Graf said bidding opened at $1.1 million, and three bidders competed, pushing the price $154,000 above the reserve.
“It’s a really good little result,” Graf said. “In all my years selling in Port Melbourne there’s never been another [home] that’s been in the same family for that long — almost 120 years.”
It was emotional sale for the family, who celebrated with a little champagne and a few tears afterwards, he said.