By Melissa Heagney-Bayliss
An investor snapped up a two-bedroom apartment in the inner city on Saturday by making just one $1000 bid to win the keys.
The apartment at 206/181 Exhibition Street, Melbourne sold for $531,000, just above the advertised reserve of $530,000.
The auction for the apartment in the Paramount building began with a vendor bid at the reserve price, which was soon topped by the buyer’s $1000 raise. While there were two other registered bidders, both remained silent, and the property sold to the investor.
My Agent Real Estate’s Adriano Persichetti said there would be some buyers who were disappointed they had not attended the auction.
“It just goes to show that all it takes is one bid,” Persichetti said. “There’s going to be people who are kicking themselves over this. That’s why I tell people they need to show up and bid.”
The vendor, who had bought the apartment off-the-plan before Paramount apartments were built in 1996, was happy with the result, he said.
An investor made just one bid at the Exhibition Street auction.Credit: Penny Stephens
She had been planning to sell to fund her retirement and had been using the apartment as an investment in recent years.
While the sale was above reserve, Persichetti said Tuesday’s interest rate rise – which took the cash rate to a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent – was already taking a toll on the market, though only on specific types of properties that weren’t being priced realistically.
“If it’s priced right, looks good and the vendors are realistic, it will sell,” he said.
The property was one of 957 Melbourne homes scheduled for auction on Saturday, with numbers bouncing back after a quiet Melbourne Cup long weekend last week.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 62.2 per cent from 698 reported results, while 83 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In Elwood, ABC Radio host and former Masterchef contestant and author Alice Zaslavsky’s apartment sold for $593,000, above the $480,000 to $520,000 guide.
Bidding on the one-bedroom apartment at 5/3 Meredith Street opened at $520,000, before a flurry of $10,000, $5000, $1000 and $500 offers took it to its sale price.
The buyer was one of four first home buyers who competed for the home.
ABC Radio host, author and former Masterchef Alice Zaslavsky sold her Elwood apartment. Credit: Scott McNaughton
McGrath St Kilda’s Michael Townsend said Zaslavsky had owned the property for nine years, and lived there with her husband Nick Fallou, before using the unit as an investment.
“It was a really strong sale – a spitfire auction,” Townsend said. “Alice and Nick are over the moon.”
Though the property sold well, Townsend said open homes were seeing fewer people through, which may be due to the latest rate rise. However, he noted the limited supply of homes likely to be listed before the year’s end, would help keep the market buoyant.
In Port Melbourne, a three-bedroom townhouse at 15 Davies Street sold for $1,605,000, above the $1.5 million reserve.
A local upsizer beat two other bidders for the home, which included a modern kitchen, oversized master bedroom and atrium style windows, popular with buyers.
“It was really, really competitive,” Jellis Craig Port Phillip’s Warwick Gardiner said.
Gardiner said a lack of stock was helping the market, and more expensive properties, with cashed up buyers weren’t being as affected by rate rises.
In Moonee Ponds, a two-bedroom home sold for $1.14 million post-auction, fetching $40,000 less than what it traded for in 2017.
The cute-as-a-button Victorian-era home at 67 Bowen Street drew a crowd of about 25 people, but just one bid of $1.1 million from a buyer’s advocate, before passing in.
Nelson Alexander Kensington auctioneer Josh Kalender called for a $10,000 rise after the opening bid, but no other offers came, even after the auction was paused to consult the vendors.
The advocate then negotiated a post-auction deal on behalf of his client, who was an investor.
Nelson Alexander Kensington’s Jon McKenna said the vendors had been very realistic about the sale.
Nelson Alexander Kensington auctioneer Josh Kalender calls for bids during the Moonee Ponds auction.Credit: Melissa Heagney-Bayliss
They had advertised the house with a $1.05 million to $1.15 million price guide, below the $1.18 million that records show the home last traded for in 2017.
McKenna said the sale was a good result, given market conditions had changed radically as interest rates climbed.
He said younger first home buyers were more concerned about the rise in rates than older buyers.
“There was a young couple in the crowd who had inspected the home a few times – but they said they were expecting a lot more [homes] to come onto the market and wanted to wait,” McKenna said.
The suburb’s median house price fell 5.4 per cent to $1,415,000 over the year to September, Domain data shows. It is up 11 per cent over the past five years.
In Armadale, two investors competed for a three-bedroom Edwardian home at 37 Stuart Street.
Bidding for the home opened on a $2 million offer from Property Bureau buyer’s advocate Alastair Mairs, who was acting on behalf of a client based in Hong Kong.
The bidding climbed in mostly $20,000 increments from there, and the property sold for $2.29 million to the expatriate investor. The result was $180,000 more than the reserve price, and surpassed the $2 million to $2.1 million guide.
Jellis Craig Stonnington’s Carla Fetter said the vendor was also an investor who was selling up because they no longer needed the home.
“When I listed the house I didn’t anticipate it would be bought by another investor,” she said.
Though investors are less common in the current market, they are finding opportunities to buy as there are fewer bidders and less competition at auctions, Mairs said.
“There was only two of us involved today … and it’s only six to seven weeks before the market shuts down for the year, so I think [the impact of interest rate rises] are being offset by a shortage of stock and because people want to get something over the line before Christmas,” he said.