Auction wrap: Balmain’s battlers fork it out in the lap of luxury

It took six decades to come back on the market, but one of Balmain’s jewels sold in just days.

The 1 Campbell Lane home in Balmain, which comes with a 22m water frontage, was built in the 1880s.

How affluent is working class Balmain?

Its largest residential home has been snapped up after just 11 days marketing.

The Cloughessy family had $11m hopes for their waterfront, with the selling agents instructed not to reveal the price.

Tom Williams at Karbon Property, who sold it with veteran agent Danny Cobden, did confirm it was bought by a homeowner.

It had been marketed as having potential for development or subdivision with a R1 Residential zoning and a 0.7:1 FSR.

The 1829sq m Balmain deep waterfront block features a heritage-listed six-bedroom Georgian Victorian home with a tidal pool.

Known as The Olde Place, it was listed for the first time in six decades.

It was long occupied by the Cloughessy family who bought it in 1960 for £3350, with the family residing there for the prior 30 years. The most famous family member, Bill Cloughessy, played for the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies in the 1970s.

Balmain’s prior house price record was inland: $7.5m last year for the Victorian Italianate mansion Hexham bought by barrister Evatt Tamine and his lawyer wife Sophie Tod.

Hexham is an 1987 Darling Street mansion built for the Soul Pattinson chemist founder Lewy Pattinson.

There was an $11.8m Balmain East record in 2014.

Set close to the Thames Street Ferry Wharf, The Olde Place overlooks Morts Bay.

The 1 Campbell Lane home, which comes with a 22m water frontage, was built in the 1880s by the Yeend innkeeper family when known as Inglefield.

Mort’s Dock and Engineering Company, the first dry dock in Australia, had bought the house in 1936 for £1500.

It was Morts Dock workers who were possibly among the last of the true working class local residents.

Sydney selling

Sydney accounted for 66 per cent of all auction activity across Australia over the past week with 435 auctions held in the city.

However, the long weekend saw volumes lower after what had been the busiest week since April with 812, according to CoreLogic.

Of the 354 results collected so far, 259 were sold, triggering a preliminary clearance rate of 73 per cent. This time last year, Sydney recorded a final auction clearance rate of 74 per cent, across a lower 317 auctions.

One of Sydney’s top sales was $4.225m in Bondi. The Drew Heath-designed five-bedroom home was designed in 2006 with Japanese influences.

It used jarrah timber floors from a Fremantle woolshed.

One of Sydney’s top sales was 10 Glen Street, Bondi, a five-bedroom home that fetched $4.225m.

The Glen St home saw a $3.8m opening bid after 10 buyers had registered with agent Simon Exleton of McGrath.

There had been 100 parties inspecting with Exleton advising the North Shore family buyers had first inspected last Thursday.

Full of light and ocean breezes, the home features solar hot water and two 5000-litre water tanks.

“The vendors are downsizing locally and will then spend more time travelling in their combi,” Exleton said.

Wallaby scores $2.5m

Five of the six registered bidders competed when the Wallaby star Michael Hooper’s Sydney Northern Beaches home went to onsite weekend auction. The Fairlight cottage was sold by Hooper and wife Kate for $2.51m. It had been listed with an initial guide of $2.3m to $2.35m.

Just two or so of the 40 attendees in the backyard were wearing masks.

The auction was brought forward by a week by Clarke & Humel agent Michael Clarke given strong interest, having been set to go under the hammer next weekend, when Hooper is to play for the Wallaby’s against the All Blacks. Hooper bought the classic four-bedroom home for $2.065m in 2016.

The overall Northern Beaches clearance rate sits at 71 per cent, CoreLogic calculate, which is close to the 72 per cent rate in the same weekend in 2019.

No bids in Vaucluse

Just a week after its $24.6m Vaucluse auction blockbuster, Sydney Sotheby’s agent Michael Pallier offered another Vaucluse home for auction.

The onsite auction for the five-bedroom house on Ashgate Avenue, Vaucluse, was over in a couple of minutes with no bids.

Set on 980sq m, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom home also attracted Australian-Chinese buyers, but unlike the week before there were no bids despite its views of the harbour and the ocean. It was passed in on a $5.3m vendor bid, with the onsite auction all over in just two minutes.

Last traded for $4.55m in 2016, the 1918 Ashgate Ave home is accessible only by pedestrian access, with its garaging up the hill on Dalley Ave.

Melbourne down

The combined capital city auction clearance rate came in at 69 per cent from 530 results collected so far, slightly lower than last week’s 70 per cent preliminary figure, which by final collection had been revised down to 64 per cent, according to CoreLogic.

Weekly auction activity remains near record lows in Melbourne with 57 scheduled auctions, a slight increase on the 40 auctions in the prior week.

One year ago, 775 Melbourne homes were auctioned with 70 per cent selling.

Of the Melbourne results collected, 31 were successful and 16 were withdrawn.

Most of the sold did so prior to their scheduled online auction.

One of the live results was a duplex on a 400sq m parcel at Dunsterville Crescent, Frankston which fetched $245,000 when sold to investors.

The online bidding started at $125,000 for the fire-damaged, uninhabitable house, with five of the 13 registered parties placing bids.

“The highest offer prior to auction was $150,000,” Ray White agent George Devic said.

The winning bidders were a couple from a neighbouring suburb, who plan to rent it after rebuilding.

As restrictions ease across Melbourne, SQM Research’s Louis Christopher is expecting auction numbers to lift.

“Volumes are set to rise in Melbourne,” he forecast. He expects see 300 scheduled auctions by the last week of October. The normal auction volumes for this time of year in Melbourne range between 700 to 1100 auctions,” he told Competing Bids.

“The good news for Melbourne agents is that pre-listing activity is already starting to increase,” CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless advised.

Canberra on top

Canberra recorded the highest preliminary smaller capital city clearance rate of 81 per cent, according to realestate.com.au, followed by Adelaide (75 per cent) and Brisbane (50 per cent).

Brisbane saw a contemporary family home in Grange sell for $1,715,000 after 70 groups inspected the home.

Seventy groups inspected this family home in Grange, which sold for $1.715m.

There were six bidders, with the buyer bidding via FaceTime from California’s Silicon Valley.

The tech entrepreneur had only viewed the property by FaceTime inspection through Ray White agent Alistair Macmillan.

The seller is off to a job opportunity in Melbourne.

Grange’s median house price is $1.02m, and based on five years of sales, has seen a compound growth rate of 4.8 per cent, according to realestate.com.au.

But the weekend sale offering had previously traded at $1,775,000 in 2018, according to CoreLogic, reflecting a $60,000 loss, plus around $80,000 in stamp duty and then other costs.

Jewel in the Crown

Sydney’s freshest prestige October auction listing comes from LJH with Marco Belgiorno-Zegna, of the Transfield Holdings family, listing in the Crown Gardens’ complex at Woolloomooloo.

1108/63 Crown Street, Woolloomooloo.

With 250sq m of living space with multiple balconies, it last sold at $2.3m in 2005.

It was a $1725-a-week rental at one stage over its 15-year ownership.

It was first sold at $1.19m when Crown Gardens was completed in 1996 in the John Saunders’ development project.