Stylish Richmond townhouse with real movie-star appeal and $2.5m guide price

A Richmond townhouse with an illuminated face of Marilyn Monroe on its facade was among the many Melbourne listings sold ahead of schedule.

Positioned on a laneway, the townhouse at 1A Waltham Place, Richmond, sold at an undisclosed price.

A contemporary Richmond townhouse with an illuminated face of Marilyn Monroe on its facade was among the many Melbourne listings that sold ahead of their scheduled weekend auction.

RT Edgar agent Sarah Case and Mal James from James Buyer Advocates had issued a $2.4 million to $2.5 million guide.

Positioned on a laneway, the 1A Waltham Place home sold at an undisclosed price.

1A Waltham Place, Richmond

The four-bedroom home sold at $2.35 million in 2017 after it was built by H Daniel Constructions, with its timber and laser-cut screen facade depicting Monroe at its entry.

The property was in a six-pack of townhouses that won the 2018 Building Designers Association of Victoria design of the year award for Melbourne Design Studios.

There are two others with decorative screens, one a Vespa and another with flowers.

Its open plan living and entertaining areas are bookended by a central courtyard and its north-facing rear garden.

The 201sq m holding comes with a seven star NatHERS rating.

Of course Melbourne’s most celebrated house facade image was Pamela Anderson’s face on Newman House, St Kilda West to a design by architect Cassandra Fahey in 2000.

Of the 935 Melbourne results collected over the past week by CoreLogic, about 59 per cent had been sold prior to Saturday’s auction.

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Zooming ahead

Melbourne’s top weekend sale was $9.9 million in Albert Park. The auction, held on Zoom on Friday afternoon, a day earlier than planned, saw a $9 million opening bid from its eventual buyer, who has been pinpointed as Grant Petty from Blackmagic Design.

The five-bedroom offering at 44 Merton St last sold at $3.2 million in 2003 and at $575,000 in 1992.

44 Merton Street, Albert Park.

It was sold through Greg Hocking Holdsworth agent Simon Gowling who had adjusted the price guide from $7.7 million to $8.3 million at the halfway point of the marketing campaign to $8.2 million to $8.6 million due to the elevated level of interest.

With ornate ceilings, light roses, cornices, arches and bay windows, as well as original marble fireplaces and stained glass, Lorimer is a Victorian era home set on an 830sq m corner position. There are fewer than a dozen homes in Albert Park on bigger holdings, according to CoreLogic.

It served as a maternity hospital during World War II.

Melbourne’s highest declared online price at Saturday’s auctions was $3.18 million in Hawthorn East.

The 1970s St Helens Rd four-bedroom house price sat within the Jellis Craig auction price guide of $3 million to $3.2 million.

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Bargain price

Melbourne had the nation’s cheapest capital-city sale.

It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom 1970s brick veneer townhouse at Melton South that fetched $261,000.

The 23/58 Andrew St offering came with courtyard with single car garage with workshop. The Brad Teal Woodards agency price guide had been $250,000 to $270,000, noting it needed renovation. It last sold at $145,000 in 2005.

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Auctions delayed

On-site auctions returned to regional Victoria on Saturday after its seven-day lockdown, but SQM Research noted many of the 136 auctions were pushed back to later in June.

Three auctions scheduled for Dromana, considered part of Greater Melbourne in Covid-19 regulations, were pushed back to next weekend.

7 Brownbill Street, Geelong.

At Surf Beach, on Phillip Island, the Ray White agent Yvette Tancheff has pushed back the auction of a three-bedroom house, listed with $699,000 hopes, to June 26 auction.

One of the big sales that went ahead saw $1,585,000 paid at Geelong. Hodges agent Carl Hammond had four bidders onsite and four online for the renovated Edwardian home.

The four-bedroom, two-bathroom Brownbill St cottage, close to Geelong’s medical precinct, underwent a $140,000 renovation in 2006, according to Cordell Connect, some five years after trading at $265,000.

Geelong’s median house price sits at $885,000, according to realestate.com.au. Based on five years of sales, Geelong has seen
a 9 per cent compound growth rate.

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Wallaby on the hop

There were 11 registered bidders vying for the Brisbane home of the former Wallaby fullback and now Triple M radio personality Greg ‘Marto’ Martin and his wife, Cath.

The Ray White agent Alistair Macmillan secured $3.17 million when the two-storey Queenslander-style Newmarket home on 1340sq m went to weekend auction, smashing its $3 million reserve.

The buyers were a local family who’ve been renting elsewhere on Wilston Rd.

214 Wilston Road, Newmarket.

“They have been looking for 18 months,” Macmillan said.

“Their young son particularly loves the rugby posts left in the backyard by Marto,” he added. It’s a special backyard without some adjoining fencing to allow plenty of space for neighbourhood games.

The Martins are downsizing from their spacious home, which they bought for $295,000 in 1997, and then spent every spare dollar for the next five years on endless renovations on the house.

“That’s not unusual for a carpenter,” he noted in 2002.

“I’d be a disgrace to my trade if I actually finished the job!” he added.

Absent from the walls is any memorabilia from his rugby days, wearing the green and gold nine times, and playing 65 games with the Queensland Reds.

He retired in 1992 after missing selection in the 1991 World Cup-winning Wallabies.

Brisbane’s top weekend auction was $3,321,000 at Hendra.

Behind its 300-year-old French Oak entry door, the five-bedroom, three-bathroom modern home came with study and study nook.

It was marketed by Place agent Patrick McKinnon as having a “presidential master retreat”.

There were plantation shutters throughout plus Crimsafe screens on windows and doors.

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Bondi on top

The nation’s top auction sale was $10.1 million at Bondi, part of Sydney’s 79 per cent preliminary auction clearance rate.

12 Imperial Avenue, Bondi.

Sydney topped the capital cities, beating Canberra’s 78 per cent, according to CoreLogic. It was, however, the first time that no capital city had a success rate above 80 per cent this year, confirming less exuberant buyers. One week in March saw five of the seven capitals above 80 per cent, with the national capital holding the baton for the past 10 weeks.

The five-bedroom Bondi home of brick and sandstone was for sale for the first time in six decades.

Sold by Ben Collier at The Agency, the home at 12 Imperial Ave sat on a 1015sq m parcel close to the Bondi Road village. The upper level captures district outlooks across to the ocean.

It last sold in 1957 when the Harris butcher family paid £7676 to the Clark sawmilling family.

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Billion-dollar bet

These days the Bondi precinct is all about billionaires. The rumour mill went into overdrive last month after an unconfirmed $22 million sale.

It was the home of interior designer Michalle Smith and architect Alex Smith, of CSA Architects, which sold off market.

There was brief speculation it was bought by the billionaire cardboard king Anthony Pratt, although a caveat on the Ramsgate Ave title lodged by Lenka Dransfield, who owns the snack and confectionery company CAL Marketing, suggests she is the buyer.

“With red hair, Pratt’s hardly likely to be a beachgoer,” one local wag said.

The previous $14 million North Bondi record was set in 2018 when KKR fund manager David Lang and his wife Dearbhail bought from NAB executive Spiro Pappas and his wife Nicolette.