Auction wrap: $5m paid sight unseen for Scarborough waterfront home
The nation’s top weekend auction sale was bought sight unseen when $5m was paid for a Scarborough waterfront property, north of Brisbane.
Lockdowns and closed borders have played havoc with buyers and sellers across capital city auction markets during winter. But the open-for-inspection and auction impediments have been overcome by the bravest of buyers, sometimes with a bit of help from mum.
The nation’s top weekend auction sale was bought sight unseen when $5m was paid for a Scarborough waterfront property, north of Brisbane, at its Saturday auction.
Set on the Redcliffe Peninsula, the six-bedroom Prince Edward Parade plantation-style home sold to a Melbourne buyer who’d only undertaken virtual inspections.
“The buyer has not stepped foot inside yet,” advised Ray White Scarborough agent Stephanie Williams, who had four registered bidders for the three-storey beachfront reserve residence on 1742sq m.
The listing had attracted over 7000 views on realestate.com.au, which was 10 times the typical Scarborough viewings.
The home, offered on a 1750sq m holding, was built by vitamin king turned tourism operator Vaughan Bullivant, who sold it in 2014 when it was on a larger block.
Scarborough median house prices currently sit at $675,000, and based on five years of sales, have seen a compound growth rate of 5.8 per cent.
With views that extend across Moreton Bay, the home has direct access to the bustling walking and cycling pathway.
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No looking
There was a sight unseen weekend sale in Brisbane’s Ascot when a five-bedroom home sold to Melbourne buyers. It drew $2.65m through Place Ascot agents Drew Davies and Carter Lagana.
“The buyer’s mother lives in Brisbane, so she viewed the property and took a few photos and videos for them,” Davies noted.
Davies calculated interstate buyer inquiry was up 300 per cent.
There were 10 registered bidders when the recently built house at Crosby Rd sold.
It came with five bedrooms plus a media room, totalling around 400sq m space on the 530sq m building block bought for $660,000 in 2015.
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Winter blues
The final weekend of the winter selling season ended in despondency. Of the 1683 results collected so far by CoreLogic, just 55 per cent were successful.
Tim Lawless at CoreLogic advised it was the lowest preliminary clearance rate recorded across the combined capital cities since April last year.
It was down on the previous week’s final clearance rate of 64 per cent.
Melbourne had the bulk of listings and the bulk of the blame with 1185 scheduled auctions. Of the 819 results collected so far by CoreLogic, just 34 per cent found buyers. It was so low because around 550, or 64 per cent, were pulled from auction.
At 82 per cent Sydney was the strongest capital city market, edging out Adelaide’s 81 per cent, which has been the market leader for the prior three weeks. Sydney saw more than half of its homes sold ahead of time over the past week. It included the nation’s highest pre-auction sale in Roseville where Wiringulla, a trophy home on 2321sq m, sold within a fortnight of its Ray White listing for $13.8m. Selling agent Lisa Davies had 15 qualified buyer private appointments scheduled in its first week.
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Olympic effort
Olympian Dean Capobianco sold in Clovelly ahead of Saturday’s scheduled auction for nearly $1m above the price guide after just 10 days on the market. Capobianco, and his wife, Jules, secured $5.4m plus.
Capobianco, who represented Australia at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the 200m sprint, bought the home for $1.46m in 2009 when upsizing from Darling Point.
Capobianco was appointed the chief executive of the geospatial data company Geoscape Australia earlier this year, having started his professional career working in marketing at News Limited and then Yahoo! and Ninemsn. Another Olympian in Sydney’s east, Craig Davies, and his wife, Jennifer, secured a snappy mid-week sale of their Waverley terrace after just days on market. The three-bedroom terrace at 17 Prospect Street had a $3m price guide. Davies had an international hockey career between 1977 and 1992 including the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics. The sale price was not disclosed.
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Charity begins at home
Melbourne’s top sale was a $4.362m sight unseen purchase in Brighton East. The newly built house at 3 Collis St was a design collaboration by Mazzei and Webster Architecture & Interiors, with landscaping by Nathan Burkett. It had been listed for just one weekend ahead of Melbourne’s latest lockdown, giving only a few potential buyers the chance to inspect the four-bedroom home.
Nick Johnstone Real Estate agents Nick Johnstone and Russ Enticott subsequently did virtual showings for the vendor, who had won the home after entering the Royal Melbourne Hospital Home Lottery. The online auction, with a $3.95m reserve, drew five buyers. It had been listed with a $3.7m to $4m price guide. When built the 613sq m building block cost $1.81m, and it was sold on completion to the charity at $4.13m.
It has now been sold to a couple from the US who live bayside.
“The buyers had never seen it in person,” Johnstone confirmed, although presumably they drove past a few times.
“It was a virtual tour where the vendor walked through videoing and our agent sold the features of the home on a Zoom call.
“We did have it open for one week before lockdown, so some of the underbidders went through, and we did have an online video.
“It’s pretty incredible to think people pay $4m for something they’ve never seen, but that’s the way of the world now.”
The Victorian health orders prevent estate agents, photographers and house plan design suppliers et al from going through homes to prepare them for listing. By contrast, the rules in NSW have allowed one-on-one open-for-inspections by intending owner occupiers, and last week investors were added to those who could attend listings, allowing state government stamp duty revenue to continue, albeit at reduced levels.
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Changing times
Buying a property sight unseen was once only for unemotional investors with an appetite for risk. They would typically be buying “off the screen” when cheap apartments were shown in slide presentations in auctions rooms in the late 1980s.
The listings would often be offered under mortgagee instructions and with little owner-occupier interest.
These days buyers have access to the prerecorded virtual tours, live streaming of walk-throughs, neighbourhood drone footage and online building and pest inspection reports that allow potential purchasers new ways of appraising property.
Of course, many use family and or buyers agent to inspect the offerings to avoid nasty surprises.
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