Knockout $3.8m for a knockdown Darlinghurst terrace

In the nation’s top online auction result, a dilapidated Darlinghurst terrace sold for $3,813,000.

202 Palmer Street, Darlinghurst, was sold by the NSW Housing Department for $3,813,000.

A dilapidated Darlinghurst terrace sold at its weekend auction for $3,813,000, in the nation’s top online auction result.

The uninhabitable historic Palmer St terrace was sold by the NSW Housing Department, which secured the terrace in 1990 from the NSW RTA, which had paid $18,500 in 1969.

There were 53 bids for the terrace which had an impressive 6m-wide frontage with its 177sq m land size. It was marketed by Maclay Longhurst of BresicWhitney as “raw and oversized”.

There were 16 registered bidders although just six competed after the $2.3m opening bid, which auctioneer Thomas McGlynn described as “a cheap and cheery start”.

“It’s all money,” he noted, perhaps a reference to the desire for much-needed revenue and stamp duties for the besieged state government treasury coffers.

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Mosman miss

The Oatley winemaking family had the weekend’s priciest auction flop when there was subdued bidding for their Mosman offering. Bidding opened at $5.5m when the McLean Crescent home was auctioned by Belle agent Tim Foote, matching a $5.5m rejected prior auction offer.

There were just the three bids from two bidders, topping out at $5.65m.

Located directly opposite Rosherville Reserve above Chinaman’s Beach, it was passed in on a $6.25m vendor bid. The 1970s home last traded at $3m in 2013 when bought by James Oatley.

His billionaire father Ian is offloading his unrenovated modernist residence known as the Igloo House that was designed by Harry Seidler close to the Spit Bridge. It goes to September 21 auction.

Bidding for 3 Mclean Crescent, Mosman, was subdued.

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Sydney shines

Sydney was the strongest and busiest capital city weekend auction market. There were 609 auctions held in the city during the first week of spring, which was down on the last week of winter.

Of the 519 Sydney results collected so far by CoreLogic, 84 per cent were successful, the highest preliminary clearance rate seen since mid-April.

Of the 436 sold results, 55 per cent were sold prior, including Hunters Hill when Treetops at 10 North Pde fetched $6.46m.

Tim Lawless at CoreLogic advised that Sydney’s final clearance rate had settled into a holding pattern above 80 per cent. Sydney stock levels were however down 20 per cent on CoreLogic’s five year average, while Melbourne was almost 40 per cent down on its typical early spring auction levels.

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Melbourne down

Melbourne’s 44 per cent success rate was the weakest of the capital cities. Across the smaller auction markets, Brisbane was the best at 78 per cent, followed by Adelaide (75 per cent), Canberra (57 per cent), and Perth (50 per cent).

Melbourne had 531 homes scheduled to go to auction, compared to 928 over the previous weekend, and just 28 this time last year. Of the 371 results collected so far, 53 per cent were withdrawn. Of the 165 sold results, 57 per cent were sold prior.

Melbourne’s top reported online sale was in Hampton. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom residence at 6 Karoola St fetched $3.12m. The revised price guidance from the Buxton Sandringham agents Misty Slade and Richard White had been $2.8m. The home had initially been on the market for a week between lockdowns five and six, with $2.6m hopes.

“When lockdown six was announced we paused the campaign,” White said.

6 Karoola Street, Hampton, fetched $3.12m.

But with no genuine end in sight of lockdown, the agency uploaded a more detailed video walk-through to allow buyers to check it out.

“Once we felt we had established a market of buyers who had a high enough level of interest and comfort to pursue the home, we scheduled the auction,” White advised.

All five registered bidders ended up bidding after the $2.7m opening bid. It was called on the market at $2.8m.

“Three of the five bidders had never stepped foot in the home, including the purchaser, relying purely on our video and digital inspections.” he said.

“During this lockdown we have had more and more buyers willing to commit to a purchase based on the technology,” he said.

It had last sold at $1m in 2008 and there was a $130,000 extension in 2009.

There were 15,000 views on realestate.com.au during its marketing by the vendors, who didn’t have a deadline, offering 30-150 day settlement options to buyers.

Hampton’s median house price sits at $2,175,000, and based on five years of sales, it has seen a 5.1 per cent compound growth rate. There are 16 houses currently listed in Hampton, including the five homes in the Channel 9 series, The Block 2021, which will be auctioned later in spring.

Set on Bronte Court, four of the Block houses come with a $2.6m to $2.8m price guide. The priciest has a $3.2m to $3.4m guide, having been bought before its renovation in June last year at $2.66m.

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Jenner jumps

There was some serious same-day price escalation on Saturday with news of the listing expectations of luxury car dealer Terry Mullens for one of Potts Point’s historic marine villas, Jenner House.

The Saturday morning reports had the Macleay St, Regency Revival-style residence with $30m hopes. By evening it had been updated to more than $34m.

Jenner House, designed by colonial architect Edmund Blacket in the 1870s for retailer Lebbeus Hordern, set the $15m Potts Point record in 2009.

The suburb’s last significant listing, Bomera sold for $34m to billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, who downsized in 2019 to the marine villa from his $30,000-a-week rental, Barford at Bellevue Hill.

Gupta’s abode was technically bought by a trust created under the local company directorship­ of society stockbroker Les Owen, who’s apparently thinking of departing Bellevue Hill.

Meanwhile Ian Joye’s Barford has since been leased by Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar and his wife Kim Jackson.

The Farquhars secured a long-term lease of Barford after their radical plans to replace the Fairfax mansion at Elaine in Double Bay hit planning resistance in July last year. No fresh plans have yet lobbed for the harbourfront that will be their forever home.

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A class apart

Elizabeth Bay has seen a $12m whisper-quiet apartment sale. It is in the Billyard Ave block designed on the harbour by Burley Katon Halliday in the late 1990s.

The apartment has been bought by Toorak resident, and Applied Chemicals pioneer, Ian Hicks from recruitment industry duo, Anthony Hourigan and Monique D’Arcy Irvine.

It previously sold at $7m in 2016, so jumped in price by $1m a year. It first sold off the plan at $3.6m in 1997.

The block’s penthouse fetched $13.35m in 2019 when offloaded by fund manager Michael Hill through Clint Ballard at Ballard Property Group. Hill bought the penthouse from David Gonski for $12.5m in 2015.