By Tom Carey
The seller of an unliveable Thomastown property is relieved after it fetched $670,000 at auction on Saturday.
Love & Co listing agent Jim Kalakias said that the house at 20 Mulga Street is in pretty poor condition because it has no kitchen or bathroom.
The vendor had tried to develop the property while they had owned it but had been unsuccessful and ultimately decided it was best to sell.
The property had been listed with a price guide of $550,000 to $605,000. Its reserve price was at the higher end of the range.
Bidding started at $500,000, and $10,000 increments were made initially by the competing buyers. The property attracted five bidders who had varied intentions with the property. Some looked to renovate, while others had intentions to knock down and rebuild.
At $595,000, the bidding increments were lowered but the auction continued without an intermission and was hotly contested throughout.
A brother and sister were the triumphant bidders, and had a plan to develop the property.
Kalakias said that the auction result suggests that the property market in Thomastown is fairly strong.
“This particular property is in very close proximity to the train,” said Kalakias.
“Anything that is close to a train station and local amenities is going fairly well.”
Eager buyers still showed up to auctions in Melbourne on Saturday despite it being AFL grand final day.
But it was one of the quietest auction weekends of the year in Melbourne with 124 auctions listed and only 35 confirmed as sold.
By Saturday evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 52.2 per cent from 67 reported results, while 18 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
Elsewhere, a buyer from the city and a buyer from the outer suburbs pushed the sale price of a red brick family home in Glen Waverley far beyond vendor expectations to sell for $1,465,000.
The three-bedroom house at 2 Cooper Avenue had ample space for development while some parts of the home have already been renovated.
The auction initially had five bidders in competition for the house that had been priced at $1.05 million to $1.15 million. The reserve price for the home would not be disclosed.
Bidding opened at $900,000 before about 40 bids were made in the hotly contested auction.
A young family from the outer suburbs were jubilant after beating the other competitors. They are glad to be moving closer to the CBD.
They have plans to improve the home in future years.
The home on a 653-square-metre block is 70 metres from Brentwood Secondary College and a five-minute drive to The Glen shopping centre.
Buxton Wheelers Hill listing agent Bruce Liu said the house had many features that appealed.
“Its location and the property has been renovated. It’s very liveable,” said Liu.
Also in Melbourne’s south-east, a record sale of $955,000 for a subdivided property in Clayton was achieved at 1/98 Moriah Street at auction on Saturday.
Ray White Clayton auctioneer Michael Renzella said that the three-bedroom home had a genuine charm that created strong interest from buyers.
The previous vendors bought the property as their first home and had improved its condition.
Six bidders participated in a hotly contested auction that exceeded the property’s reserve price by $225,000. The reserve price was at the top of the price guide at $680,000 to $730,000.
In front of a crowd of 130 people, bidding started at $580,000. Six of the registered 12 bidders raised their hands during proceedings, but a single father blew away all other competitors.
“He just bid really aggressively towards the $800,000 price range and onwards,” said Renzella.
“He was making $30,000, $20,000 and $10,000 while the other bidders were making between $1000 and $500 bids. But maybe he got rewarded in the end by doing that. His tactic definitely paid off.”
AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said that the auction results from AFL grand final weekend in Melbourne were too hard to read into in relation to the Melbourne property market.
“Typically with the grand final, listings and sales are quite depressed,” Oliver said.
“But it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s still in the context of a downtrend of clearance rates in Melbourne. They’ve been slowing since May.”
Meanwhile, Oliver said that the RBA is likely to keep interest rates on hold when they meet on Tuesday.
“They [the RBA] are probably also going to retain the inclination to raise rates again, which will keep buyers on edge to some degree.”