Seven buyers hoping to turn a Mosman deceased estate into a trophy home registered at auction on Saturday, pushing the sale price to $16.1 million.
The three-bedroom house at 13 Stanley Avenue appealed for its elevated position on the Balmoral slopes with uninterrupted views.
Four Mosman locals took part indoors while rain fell on the ocean outside.
Bidding opened at $10 million, and after some $500,000 bids quickly soared past the $11.5 million reserve, which was in line with similar sales in the area.
Increments ranging from $250,000 to $100,000 took the price to $14 million before two buyers bid in $100,000 lots until the house sold under the hammer for $16.1 million.
Selling agent Adrian Bridges, of Atlas Lower North Shore, said: “We didn’t have much guidance because the property was always going to be sold [at auction].”
It was “probably a knockdown”, he said, but buyers had a lot of confidence in investing in the street because it held the Balmoral price record of $33 million.
“This will ultimately become a trophy home,” Bridges said. “So, for this one to sell for this level kind of speaks to the buyer’s confidence that a finished product is going to be, you know, up in the sort of $30 [million] to $40 million range.”
The buyer was a Mosman local. The home had been in the vendors’ family for 65 years.
The property was one of 1402 scheduled to go to auction in Sydney last week. By Saturday evening, Domain Group had recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 66 per cent from 848 reported results through the week, while 187 auctions had been withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
In the inner city, a two-bedroom house in Surry Hills drew 11 registrations, predominantly professional couples. The corner property with a parking spot at 81 Arthur Street sold for $3,350,000.
Only five parties were able to bid due to the strong opening offer of $2.7 million, which immediately met the reserve. Bids in $50,000, $20,000 and $10,000 rises were placed until the home sold well above its $2.5 million guide for $3,350,000.
BresicWhitney’s Michael Kirk said the location – “right in the village pocket” – was a drawcard for buyers, most of them couples seeking to move in.
“It’s a rare opportunity to get a quality, single-level residence in Surry Hills on that land size, that’s on 170 square metres of land, which is big in Surry Hills,” Kirk said.
“It was architecturally designed or redesigned back in the ’80s … with big cathedral-height ceilings, so it had lots of light and space.”
The buyer was a single professional from Edgecliff. The vendor was “rapt” with the result.
The home last traded for $550,000 in 1998, records show.
In Bondi Beach, a two-bedroom unit sold for $1.53 million to a single professional who had been renting in the area. Guided at $1.3 million, the apartment at 3/28-30 Simpson Street was hotly contested by two first home buyers.
The two parties both made bids inside the flat, with an opening offer bang on the guide at $1.3 million. They then went up in $50,000 and $10,000 increments until reaching $1.49 million, at which point bidding temporarily stalled. The vendor’s $1.7 million reserve was adjusted on the floor to $1.52 million before a final bid of $1.53 million sealed the sale under the hammer.
Selling agent Ben Fraser, of McGrath Double Bay, said buyers always want to buy on the beaches due to the lifestyle.
He said there weren’t any similar offerings at the time of listing.
“Most buyers saw value in it needing work and the uplift there, what it would be like, you know, once you do the renovations and sell moving forward,” Fraser said.
The vendor had owned the property for 25 years. It last traded for $400,000 in 2001, records show.
AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said Sydney’s clearance rate of 66 per cent means “we got a bit of a boost from the rate cuts in late February” but all is not what it seems.
“We got a bounce out of the rate cut, but it’s really just taken us back to around average or just below, and it almost looks as if we’re starting to soften again, based on the numbers that are coming out.”
Oliver said interest rates were keeping the property market relatively subdued.
“The reality is that rates are still high, and that fact is a constraint on the market,” he said. “Historically, it normally takes several cuts to really reinvigorate the Australian property market.”