By Jim Malo
A downsizer was overjoyed when she won the keys to an Albert Park apartment on Saturday for $803,000, thanks to her son’s bidding at auction.
Carmen Szabo had her heart set on the stylish one-bedroom apartment at 7/123 Beaconsfield Parade, a unit in a block that was formerly the Victoria Hotel, first built in the 1800s.
“The property itself is something unique and position, position, position,” she said. “It’s very hard to beat.”
Szabo wanted to be near the water because she liked to walk by the beach. Port Phillip Bay is visible from the apartment’s balcony.
Belle Property Albert Park auctioneer and listing agent David Wood listed the home with a quoted price range of $700,000 to $750,000. The auction was slow to start after it began with a vendor bid at the bottom of the range.
Auctioneer David Wood (left) greets buyer Carmen Szabo and her son, who bid on her behalf.Credit: Luis Ascui
Once the home was announced on the market at $760,000, bidding picked up and four bidders traded rapid bids. Szabo’s son was quick to answer each bid, and embraced his mother as she broke down into tears of joy when the hammer fell.
Wood said it was a good price for a one-bedroom apartment, which was achieved because of the high-end conversion of the hotel.
“They were very sympathetic to the building when it was renovated to create the apartments,” he said. “Properties in this building are very tightly held. So it’s an opportunity for someone … and there’s not many apartments in Albert Park that enjoy lift access in an historic building.”
It was one of 921 auctions scheduled in Melbourne on Saturday. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 61 per cent from 703 reported results, while 80 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In Clayton, a run-down property sold to a buyer who bid through a video call from Greece.
Ray White listing agent Peter Liu listed the three-bedroom house at 13 Thomas Street for sale with a quoted price range of $1.4 million to $1.54 million. He said buyers were more interested in the property’s 697 square metres of land than the house itself.
“We thought it would be a hard one because it’s a very old house,” he said. “It can be liveable but it’s very old accommodation.
“It’s more the location, it could be a knockdown rebuild. There’s a lot of investors who want to knock down to build rooming houses for the students [who go to nearby universities].”
The auction began with a bid of $1.3 million but shot up in $100,000 increments. It sold for $1.7 million in an auction contested by four bidders.
Liu said he did not know the buyer’s intentions for the property, and did not disclose the reserve.
In Clifton Hill, a Design Files-featured townhouse made a splash at auction, where it sold for $1,412,000 – well above the vendors’ reserve.
The three-bedroom property at 9/1 Marshall Place featured a colourful, mid-century refresh of the original house and floor plan, including converting the garage into a space that could be used as a living area or spare room.
Nelson Alexander listing agent and auctioneer Mark Verrocchi listed the home with a quoted price range of $1.2 million to $1.3 million. The auction was slow to start and when Verrocchi placed a vendor bid at the bottom of the range, a long pause followed.
Five bids from two parties cleared the top of the range and the vendors’ reserve price, but bidding stalled again at $1.33 million. After a break, Verrocchi announced that the home was on the market which drew in a third bidder who later won the auction.
The winners, a couple from Darwin who inspected the property for the first time on Saturday, paid $112,000 more than the vendors’ reserve price. Verrocchi said their children had previously inspected the property on their behalf.
“I think that they’re eventually going to move down,” he said. “What I’ve got from them so far is that the kids will probably move in for a little bit and then this might be the Melbourne pad.”
Vendor Liz Ride, an associate director at design firm Studio Tate, said she’d designed the home for her own family’s needs and was pleased with the sale.
An interior designer sold her Clifton Hill home at auction.Credit: Nelson Alexander Ivanhoe
“We’re rapt, we’re very excited,” she said. “It is, yeah, above our expectations and will enable us to do what we want to do, which is another one of these.
“We’ve actually purchased a warehouse conversion down the road, so … it’s a very different proposition.”
In Glen Waverley, another property was purchased by buyers who saw the house for the first time on Saturday.
The four-bedroom home at 37 Viewpoint Avenue attracted four bidders, all of whom appreciated the 1970s home’s renovation and extension and killer views, Jellis Craig listing agent Calvin Huang said.
“It was on the low side of the road, but city facing and the houses behind it go further down so from the rear of the house, you actually get city views,” he said.
Huang listed the home for sale with a quoted price range of $1.8 million to $1.98 million. He said the auction began with a bid of $1.7 million, and was on the market at $1.88 million.
After the price reached $1.9 million, Huang said the winning buyers started throwing in big bids before the home sold for $1.94 million.
The buyers and all three underbidders were owner-occupiers from the local area, who had been looking for a home for some time.
“When [the buyers] saw it, they loved it and just bid aggressively. That’s how you buy real estate. They saw it for the first time today,” he said. “They were [looking] a year ago, but they’ve been on and off.
“All in all, yes, some buyers are taking a bit longer to secure a property. When buyers start out, they want to get something for the right price … but after time, they see the value and the cost of their time as well.”