By Jim Malo
Eddie Perfect’s Brunswick East home sold after auction on Saturday for $2,285,000, which the multi-talented entertainer described as a fair price.
Perfect’s three-bedroom-plus-studio house at 39 Barkly Street was the inspiration for his 2017 musical Vivid White and a much-loved family home. Perfect said he was happy the successful buyer would be moving their family in.
“Everything about a house is all of your life and your memories,” he said. “But it’s good to let it go and to let someone else make some memories in it.”
Nelson Alexander agent Tom Breen had the sale; he listed the property with a quoted price range of $2.1 million to $2.31 million. The auction began with a vendor bid at the bottom of the range.
Two buyers traded nine bids before the price reached $2.27 million and the home was passed in. The highest bidder added $15,000 to their bid to secure the keys in post-auction negotiations.
Breen said the buyers were locals. “[They’re a] young family and live around the corner, so they love this location and are really excited to move in,” he said.
Tom Roberts auctions Perfect’s home. Credit: Eddie Jim
Perfect was happy with the price. “We feel like it’s just like a really fair price and, you know, I’m not really interested in extorting people,” he said. “The best result is when everyone feels good about it, and we feel good and we hope they feel good.”
It was one of 1282 auctions scheduled in Melbourne on Saturday. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 61.3 per cent from 889 reported results, while 98 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In Seddon, a unit that used to be a part of the old RM Crockett & Sons cricket bat factory sold under the hammer for its reserve price.
The two-bedroom apartment at 4/136-138 Charles Street featured raked ceilings, exposed brick and an industrial style. Jas Stephens agent Lily Lynch listed the home for sale with a quoted price range of $850,000 to $900,000.
She said the auction began with a bid of $840,000 and was a contest between two first home buyers.
The auction passed quickly, Lynch said, and the sale price and the reserve were both the top of the price range.
She said four buyers had confirmed they would bid ahead of the auction, but two failed to show on Saturday.
“It shows the market at the moment, to have 100 [interested parties attend inspections] but only ending up with two bidders,” Lynch said. “Good properties are going well, but things aren’t going crazy every time; it’s very price sensitive.”
In Carlton, an updated terrace sold for $2.3 million, its reserve price, after auction.
The three-bedroom home at 64 Neill Street – a short walk from parks and the popular Rathdowne Street village – has period charm with modern features.
“It’s a wider-than-normal, double-storey balcony terrace with a great Carlton location,” Nelson Alexander listing agent Charlie Barham said. “It was ready to move straight in, but it still had the potential to update it.”
Barham listed the property with the reserve price, which he said had confused some potential buyers, but all appreciated knowing the vendor’s price expectations.
“There was no ambiguity around the price that was required to buy it,” he said. “A few people weren’t familiar with [the practice] … when we explained the mechanics around it, buyers appreciated the extra transparency.”
In Victoria, a property can be marketed with a price guide of a single price or a 10 per cent range, but vendors are free to set their reserve higher on auction day.
The auction began with a vendor bid of $2.25 million, and the home passed in after receiving one bid of $2.26 million. The sole bidder bought it after the auction in negotiations.
Barham said the buyer was downsizing. “It was a downsizer moving into the inner city, which we’re noticing a lot of. They’re a big part of the city market at the moment.”
In Malvern, a modernist home at 28 Elizabeth Street sold in a competitive auction for well above its quoted price range.
Jellis Craig listing agent Will Benison said three bidders had fought hard to secure the three-bedroom home at auction.
“It was a good house for the area, and it was built in 1975,” he said. “To get three bidders at the moment is rare. But good houses in good locations are always going to do well, and something unique like this one is even more rare.”
Benison listed the home for sale with a quoted price range of $3.7 million to $4.05 million.
The auction began at the bottom of the range and the home was declared on the market at about $4.2 million. It sold for $4.34 million under the hammer. Benison declined to discuss the price or the vendor’s reserve.
He said the home sold to a family.
Public records show the home last sold in 1993 for $522,500.
clarification
A previous version of this story described the Carlton terrace as double-fronted. It is in fact double-storey.