Real Estate auction blog: Livestreams and rolling updates from Melbourne’s auction market
An award-winning South Yarra home has sold $260,000 above reserve, but a Dingley Village home sold to the underbidder after a shock end to its auction had the day’s most unexpected result.
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Melbourne’s auction market is smashing through a buoyant August market with booming auction numbers closer to spring levels.
And despite extra choice, buyers are going big with several homes sold six figures above expectations — including a Boronia home that shot almost $400,000 past its price guide and a South Yarra architectural award winner that picked up a $260,000 bonus.
But one of the day’s most surprising results was a Dingley Village auction where the top bidder rescinded their final offer and the home’s price actually fell by $5000 in the final seconds of the auction.
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The results emerged from the 863 auctions scheduled this week, an almost 30 per cent lift on the same weekend last year.
Including 809 auction results from last weekend, Victoria is expected to top 3500 auctions in one of its busiest winter months since before the pandemic.
There’s even more than 1000 auctions expected on the final weekend of August in what will be the first super Saturday market test for the state since autumn.
PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said back-to-back rate pauses in July and August had given both buyers and sellers more confidence.
Ms Flaherty said the auction clearance rate for the past 12 weeks had averaged 70.5 per cent, while across the same period last year the figure was just 67.3 per cent, indicating higher supply was being met by rising buyer demand.
“We do have enough buyers, they aren’t at the peak levels we saw in 2021, but we have seen a notable rise in the numbers looking to buy on realestate.com.au,” Ms Flaherty said.
“And we haven’t seen a number of people selling rise to the same extent.”
AUCTION REPLAYS AND RESULTS
However, she noted it was also probable some of the auctions would be owners offloading a property as they were no longer comfortable making interest rate payments.
“Most people are in a good position, but certainly people who bought when prices were very high are most likely to be feeling the pinch,” Ms Flaherty said.
Buyer’s advocate Nicole Jacobs said with auction numbers averaging close to 900 for the four weekends in August, they were at the level “where we start to say that’s a lot of stock”.
However, Ms Jacobs advised caution to buyers as the sales would include a number of investors offloading homes that had not proven particularly profitable.
The buying specialist typically hones in on Melbourne’s inner north, and said she had noticed that sellers willing to do a deal before an auction typically had few buyers interested.
If buyers were being pressured to make an offer ahead of hammer time, she suggested insisting going to auction or a boardroom auction so you could see your competition — or lack thereof.
MAN CAVE AND A POOL EQUALS $380,000 BONUS
A Boronia home tipped to sell for $900,000-$990,000 has smashed expectations in a result that shot close to $400,000 past its range.
The 18 Rowan Ave property’s auction got off to a strong start, with a $900,000 opening bid.
It was up to $1m six bids later and the figure kept rising, shooting past $1.1m and then $1.2m amid rapid-fire $10,000 offers.
The increments dropped to $5000, but the bids kept coming as the home moved towards $1.3m.
They’d slipped again to $2000 margins as the home approached its final sale price at $1.37m.
Barry Plant’s Keith Wilson handled the sale of the 737sq m property which came with an impressively landscaped back yard that was home to a snazzy pool area, a basketball ring and a man cave set up with a bar and projection screen.
AWARD-WINNER SNARES WINNING RESULT
In South Yarra, one of the first auctions on Saturday was a roaring success for the sellers.
The striking 32A Cromwell Rd two-bedroom house designed by Wood Marsh claimed the Harold Desbrowe-Annear Award for best residential home in the 1996 Victorian Architecture Awards.
With a crowd close to 80, despite a weather forecast that might have turned some away, the auction proved just as winning as the home’s architectural merits.
The house was called on the market at $1.5m, but it wasn’t until the price had reached $1.76m that the hammer finally came down.
Earlier in the week, Jellis Craig’s Carla Fetter said buyers had responded to the quality of the home, with 62 groups visiting its first open for inspection and convincing them to bring the auction forward by a week.
“The design is quite amazing, considering it was built in 1995 it feels a lot newer than that,” Ms Fetter said.
“People know that it won’t be replaceable.”
The home had a $1.4m-$1.5m price guide.
SOLD! TO THE UNDERBIDDER?
Ray White auctioneer Dylan Jansma had a rare moment testing his skills at counting backwards as 126 Howard Rd, Dingley Village, went under the hammer this morning.
Heated bidding had helped the three-bedroom house reach $950,000, about $100,000 above the home’s $770,000-$845,000 asking price.
But upon realising the total sum attached to their $5000 final bid, the buyer asked to have their offer waived.
“They retracted their bid at $950,000, having been caught in the flow of the auction and not being aware of where the bidding was,” Mr Jansma said.
The home sold to the underbidder moments later, who Mr Jansma had unsuccessfully entreated for a further rise on $950,000, even when offered a chance to pay just a further $100.
Auction rules in Victoria dictate any bid made during an auction is an unconditional offer that can be legally enforced, requiring a buyer to part ways with at least a 10 per cent deposit even if they cannot complete the purchase.
However, Mr Jansma made a discretionary decision to accept the bid’s retraction.
“We’d rather sell to someone jumping for joy, rather than try to push a purchase on anyone who is not 100 per cent comfortable,” Mr Jansma said.
The buyers were a young family.
PASSED IN, BUT STILL CELEBRATING
Expectations of a three-bidder battle fell short at 14/112 Mimosa Rd, Carnegie.
The two-bedroom unit had been popular in the lead up to the auction as its garden space made it an affordable alternative to a villa unit.
But despite three parties expected to bid on the day, it took a $600,000 vendor bid to get things started as the home went under the hammer this morning.
And even then there was only a single further bid at $605,000.
The home passed in at that level, and the top bidder went in to negotiate.
Ray White Carnegie’s Olivia Petrou said one of the parties who hadn’t bid had said they wanted to “see the home pass in”.
The strategy proved a mistake, with the sole bidder negotiating a $646,600 deal with the vendors behind closed doors shortly after the auction.
A young couple with a three-year-old bought their first home and will relocate from Bayside Melbourne to the property.
While she’d left them to celebrate with champagne, Ms Petrou said she wouldn’t be surprised if they added a bit of orange juice to celebrate the purchase in keeping with their new address on Mimosa Rd.
BLUE-CHIP REAL ESTATE GETS BLUE-CHIP RESULT
In Carlton North, a classic terrace house has picked up a classic Melbourne auction result after it soared to a $1.6m sale.
The two-bedroom property at 749 Drummond St went under the hammer with a $1.3m-$1.4m asking price via Nelson Alexander’s Charlie Barham.
But it grabbed a $1.45m opening offer and had four bidders pile in with further offers.
Wakelin Property Advisor’y Jarrod McCabe was in the crowd and said a swath of young couples had dominated the crowd of more than 70 people.
In one of the inner-city suburb’s more popular streets, the single-storey home was listed as liveable today with scope for improvement.
EAST MEETS WEST IN AUCTION SUCCESS
A homebuyer from Boronia relocating to be closer to family won the day in a rapid-fire Newport auction.
Williams Real Estate’s John Limperis had been expecting first-home buyers to dominate the bidding for 2/81 Challis St, but they were all pipped by a buyer who had come from the other side of Melbourne.
Offers for the two-bedroom unit kicked off at $500,000 and the home was instantly on the market.
A matter of minutes later the home was sold for $580,000, with three of the five expected bidders having competed for the home.
Mr Limperis said competition had been so fast and fierce two prospective buyers who had been in the crowd hadn’t been given the chance to bid before being priced out.
A first-home buyer was the underbidder for the home that had a $495,000-$540,000 pre-auction price guide.
DID I MENTION IT’S ON THE MARKET?
A Keilor Downs home sold for $681,000 under the hammer despite the auctioneer only mentioning the three-bedroom house was on the market after the final bid.
Free-flowing and fast, bidding for the 5 Adios Place property carried it from $600,000 to the final result in a matter of minutes.
The auctioneer finally got a chance to call the home on the market at that point, but it turned out the reason for the lull in activity was that the underbidders had all maxed out their bidding.
Listed with a $600,000-$650,000 price guide, the property was marketed by Barry Plant Taylors Lakes’ Sash Mitrevski.
THAT’S A SERIOUS SILVER LINING
It’s always hard saying goodbye to a home, but the sellers of a Rowville house might have got a bit more than a silver lining as their home sold $185,000 above expectations.
Barry Plant Rowville’s Gavin Montario had the 3 Silverdale Close property listed with a $1.1m-$1.2m asking price, and it looked like that might have been too much with the auction needing a $1.14m vendor bid to get going.
The buyers quickly proved their intent, pushing the home to $1.22m when it was called on the market.
But the hammer didn’t fall until the four-bedroom house on an 804sq m block had reached a whopping $1.405m.
UNEXPECTED MILLIONAIRE
The owner of 1 Murray Cres, Rowville, watched their home unexpectedly become a million-dollar address this morning.
There were multiple bidders for the three-bedroom house, with the opening offer coming in below the home’s $860,000-$940,000 pre-auction price guide.
But the price kept rising, with Ray White auctioneer Jonathan Eves welcoming a new bidder to the fray at $1.006m and dubbing their move to the front of the pack a “Steven Bradbury story” in a nod to Australian Winter Olympics gold medallist of the same name who clinched a come-from-behind win after skating to the front of speed-skating medal race in 2002.
But it still took another 15 bids to wrap things up at $1.029m.
EARLIER THIS WEEK
There has already been auction success this week, with 17 Smile Cres, Wyndham Vale, sold well above expectations under the hammer on Tuesday night.
Ray White Werribee’s Robert Krnjeta said after a $1m opening bid, three parties pursued the four-bedroom house — but that in the end it came down to two parties.
A $30,000 knockout bid that raised the price from $1.17m to $1.2m ended the auction.
“They made it easy for us, though I haven’t seen that at that figure for a while,” Mr Krnjeta said.
“But it made it easy for themselves, as they scared the other buyer off.”
Alex Krnjeta and Aydan Matejin handled the listing.
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Originally published as Real Estate auction blog: Livestreams and rolling updates from Melbourne’s auction market
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