By Caroline Zielinski
A young local couple forked out $1,025,000 for an architecturally designed two-bedroom Collingwood apartment at auction on Saturday, beating two other bidders for the quirky inner-north pad.
The 105-square-metre “Lamington Warehouse” apartment at 3F/68 Oxford Street – so-called due to its unique form and brown-red-brown colouring – was first bought by the vendor as a shell in 2003 before it was re-designed by Melbourne architects Rexroth Mannasmann Collective.
Jellis Craig Fitzroy agent and auctioneer Simon Shrimpton opened the auction with a vendor bid of $900,000, and the two under-bidders – a Warrandyte family hoping to downsize, and an older couple bidding on behalf of their daughter – battled it out until $990,000, at which point the younger couple entered their first bid.
“The buyers, locals from Fitzroy, fell in love with it as soon as they saw it: they just loved the architecture, how it has a timeless quality to it,” Shrimpton said. He listed the home with a quoted price range of $900,000 to $950,000 and the reserve was the top of the range.
The property was one of 867 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne this week. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 68.6 per cent from 662 reported results throughout the week, while 67 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In Brunswick, a renovation project by interior designer David Flack sold for $1.72 million.
Jellis Craig selling agent Elizabeth Kelly listed the house at 7 Howard Street for sale with a quoted price range of $1.4 million to $1.5 million. The home’s recent renovation added colourful and retro touches throughout the property.
She said five bidders competed for the home, which had a reserve price of $1,535,000. There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.
“We had one downsizer couple, couples in their 30s and 40s, and some single professionals,” she said. The auction kicked off at $1.4 million, and by $1.55 million it was clear it was a “two-horse race”, she said.
The winners were a Brunswick couple in their mid-30s who have been active buyers in the local market for six months. “They love the house and have a similar design flair to the vendors,” Kelly said.
Flack founded Flack Studios and is known for designing pop star Troye Sivan’s Melbourne home. He bought the Federation weatherboard home 18 months ago with his husband, Jason Olive.
“We spent the last eight months renovating it – it has beautiful heritage features, lots of exposed brick, and we worked with that by adding earthy and natural terracotta and tonal marble throughout,” he said.
Flack said the couple intended to live in the home for another couple of years but recently found their dream home instead.
Earlier on Saturday, a professional woman in her 40s paid $2.1 million for a three-storey Fitzroy warehouse conversion, part of the former MacRobertson’s chocolate factory.
The open-plan townhouse at 215 Argyle Street had a quoted price range of $1.8 million to $1.9 million, and features three bedrooms, exposed red brick and a cathedral timber ceiling.
Nelson Alexander Fitzroy agent Henry Rutherfurd said there were two bidders: the winner, who was upsizing from her Richmond apartment, and a Tasmanian couple in their 50s looking to buy an investment property in Melbourne.
After an opening bid of $1.8 million, bids were slow to come, and the auctioneer paused the contest.
“After they came back out, the two of them [bidders] started the back and forth pretty quickly,” he said. “[The buyer] was on the phone to her financial adviser the whole time, which probably helped with the strategy.”
The converted warehouse, part of the former MacRobertson’s chocolate factory, sold for $2.1 million at auction on Saturday. Credit: Domain
The vendor, a businesswoman who dabbles in design, was happy to take $1.9 million for the property, but raised the reserve to $1.95 million after she saw how well the bidding was going, Rutherfurd said.
In Seddon, a young local couple paid $1.13 million for a two-bedroom house after their previous home – a quirky Footscray townhouse in a former Olympic Tyre building – proved too small following an unexpected twin pregnancy.
The renovated period home at 116 Charles Street had a quoted price range of $1 million to $1.1 million. It has a stained-glass entry, two bathrooms and a brick paved patio, and could be extended.
Village Real Estate agent and auctioneer Joseph Luppino said two bidders contested the auction. The reserve was $1.1 million.
The vendor bought the property in 2017. The buyers “really like the lifestyle and the location”, and planned to renovate it when their children were older, Luppino said.
He said the inner-west market was picking up.
“At the moment it’s all a bit safe … but if we see interest rates dropping, we’re going to start to see prices climb very quickly.”