Cautious buyers wait to pounce after auction hammer
Numerous trophy home listings found buyers soon after their weekend auctions, suggesting cautious underlying demand across Sydney’s eastern suburbs from stock-starved buyers.
Numerous trophy home listings found buyers soon after their weekend auctions, suggesting cautious underlying demand across Sydney’s eastern suburbs from stock-starved buyers.
The headline offering was Light House on the Dover Heights clifftop.
The bidding opened at $10m for the Peter Stutchbury-designed three-bedroom, three-bathroom abode. It rose to $10.88m, with the auction concluding on an $11m vendor bid.
The Wentworth St home sold soon after at an undisclosed price.
The 556sqm building block had traded for $4.1m in 2008 when bought by Odette Gourley, a partner at Corrs Chambers Wesgarth, and her late partner, solicitor Leigh Brown, who was at Minters for 46 years.
They secured its $1.2m development approval in 2009.
The home, set 80m above the ocean, won the prestigious Wilkinson Award for Residential Architecture in 2015.
It was sold through Sydney Sotheby’s International Realty’s Michael Pallier, who’d featured the home on the Luxe Listings Sydney third series with $12m guidance.
The weekend sale price signalled that buyers are poised to buy, especially where vendors have lower than boomtime price expectations.
$14.5m tops nation
It was Ben Collier at The Agency who secured the nation’s top sale when around $14.5m was paid in Woollahra in post-auction negotiations. The top bid at auction had been $14.21m. The home had gone to Ray White auction in September when there was no bid, but $16m expectations.
The auction was again well attended by stock-starved buyer agents who were perhaps just keeping up appearances on the auction circuit since they had left while negotiations got serious inside the elegant Federation home.
The Dang family had bought the Wellington St for $2.25m from cotton farmer David Farley in 1995. The house was two along from the home sold in 2021 for a bullish $22m by television star Kerri-Anne Kennerley.
Collier also secured the post-auction sale of the five-bedroom, four-bathroom contemporary home at 14 Russell St, Woollahra for $9,875,000. It appeared that Chalk Road buyer agent Ed Flitcroft was representing the buyers. The opening bid was $9.7m, with a $9.8m vendor bid, with it passed in at $9.825m.
There was an $11.65m pre-auction sale of the longheld Simos family home on Martin Rd, Centennial Park, with the adjacent building block remaining for sale through Collier.
Romahampa had been offered as a 1568sqm combined holding, or as separate lots. The five-bedroom 1913 Arts & Crafts style home was being sold for the first time since 1948.
Monkton passed in
Some 851 auctions were held across Sydney. Of the 691 results collected so far by CoreLogic, nearly 72 per cent were successful, which matched the same week last year.
While Woollahra topped the sales, Monkton, the Bellevue Hill home of former Goldman Sachs Australia investment banker Tim Burroughs and wife Judith was passed in through Collier, after $29m interest, on a $30m vendor bid placed by Damien Cooley at Cooley Auctions.
The seven-bedroom home, designed by Espie Dods for the Walker family, had been listed off market last year through Bill Malouf.
There was a $12m sale on the Parramatta River at Chiswick.
The five-bedroom Georgian-inspired home comes with a sandy beach. It was built 14 years ago on its 1047sqm holding.
Chiswick’s top $12.5m sale was in 2021 for a 1081sqm holding with a four-bedroom house. It is now the home of local agent Dib Chidiac.
Sydney’s most viewed home listing for weekend auction was a three-bedroom Dee Why residence that secured 16,000 page views during marketing on realestate.com.au. Listed with a $1.5m guide it fetched $1,585,000 through Georgie Kelly of Re Collective.
Hawthorn high
Melbourne was host to 1125 auctions last week. Of the 966 results collected so far, 68 per cent found buyers. Over the same week last year, 1574 auctions were held with a final clearance rate of 67 per cent.
Melbourne’s top sale was $5,505,000 in Hawthorn with a John Beswicke-designed, 1892-built house, Glucksburg. The six-bedroom house at 9 Yarra St sold through Kay & Burton agent Scott Patterson who had given $5m to $5.5m guidance. There were three bidders, after nearly 19,000 page views on realestate.com.au. The home, which had sold for $5.25m in April 2020, was on the market at $5.3m.
“It’s a good measure that the market may be stronger than everyone is thinking,” Patterson said.
Melbourne’s second-dearest advised sale was in Albert Park at $4,165,000. The four-bedroom, three-bathroom semi on Page St had come with a $3.5m to $3.85m guidance from Adrian Wood and Michael Paproth at The Agency. The newly renovated home attracted three bidders.
An Edwardian home on Maling Rd, Canterbury, listed with $4.7m to $4.9m hopes, was passed in on a $4.8m vendor bid, and now comes with a $5.088m asking price.
Askern, a 1930s John St, Kew offering sold before auction at an undisclosed price, having been listed with $5m to $5.5m guidance.
Buyer agent Mal James calculated an overall 63 per cent success rate for the weekend’s priciest 40 prestige offerings, with the Boroondara listings “hot” at 80 per cent.
Adelaide’s clear lead
Nationally, there were 2393 homes taken to auction across the combined capital cities last week, some 30 per cent lower than this time last year. Of the 1929 national results collected so far by CoreLogic, 69 per cent were successful. This time last year 71 per cent of reported auctions were successful.
Adelaide recorded the highest preliminary clearance rate with 88 per cent of auctions reporting a successful result, followed by Brisbane at 64 per cent and Canberra at 59 per cent.
Bellagio La Villa, a 42ha Gold Coast estate owned by billionaire developer Riyu Li, founder of the China-based Ridong Group, was passed in on a $42m vendor bid.
Bidding up
The depth of bidding interest has become increasingly apparent over recent weeks.
Record registrations were taken in Sydney’s Croydon where Joseph Georges, and his father, Sam, of Georges Ellis & Co, had 50 prospective bidders. The home, offered for the first time in seven decades, fetched $3.13m.
There was an average of five registered bidders and three active bidders attending the 377 Ray White auctions across the country, up on 4.3 registered bidders and 2.6 active the previous weekend.
Ray White Rochedale agent Anton Silaen had 27 registered bidders, with eight active, when the four-bedroom, two-storey brick house at 14 Tapscott Street, Wishart sold for $1.23m.
The winning bid was a family moving from Taiwan.
It’s a deal
Negotiations on the Brisbane riverfront property of Hancock Prospecting’s Daniel Wade saw it sell last week following its recent auction when it was passed in at $10.4m. It went to one of the three bidders through Sarah Hackett at Place Estate Agents.
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