At Sydney auctions, downsizers and young families fight for inner city bargains

It’s shaping up as the new battleground in Sydney’s weekend auction wars – young couples are squaring off against older downsizers for a toe-hold in the inner city.

As the price of freestanding houses and semis close the CBD climbs ever higher, these two groups are becoming fierce competitors for more affordable properties – such as townhouses and garden apartments- that still have some prized outdoor space.

“They’re two categories of buyers we encounter all the time here in our core marketplace,” says inner west agent Danny Cobden, of Cobden and Hayson.

He sold a three-bedroom townhouse in Rozelle at auction on Saturday for $1,397,000 – almost $150,000 more than the reserve – at which most of the eight registered bidders were  from these two groups.

In the end newly married couple Medric Oribert and Tijana Petkovic offered $500 more than a downsizing pair, Jenny and Stewart Fisher, from the upper north shore.

“Typically you’d see the empty nesters win out, because generally they’ve got deeper pockets. In this instance it was bought by a young couple who had only inspected it this morning for the first time,” Mr Cobden said.

For the Fishers, who sold their family home in Hornsby after their children moved out, and have been looking to buy something smaller in the inner west for the past eight months, it was another disappointing result.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Ms Fisher said. “We almost bought a freestanding house in Leichhardt that went for less than this one.

“We really liked it [the Rozelle townhouse] but at the end of the day you have to be sensible.”

Demand for townhouses and garden apartments, especially in the inner west, is pushing prices well above what they used to sell for.

In Concord, Dib Chidiac, of Raine and Horne Concord, sold a three-bedroom townhouse with a pool to a young family for $852,000 – a 30 per cent increase in price from when it last sold three years ago.

“People who can’t afford a house are looking at townhouses now, they’re definitely much more popular,” he said.

Earlier on Saturday a downsizing couple turned the tables and bought an unrenovated two-bedroom townhouse in Birchgrove, with a large north-facing courtyard, for $1.32 million – $160,000 more than the 95-year-old owner was hoping for.

The buyers, a couple from Queensland who wanted to be close to their children, outbid seven others, including several young couples, said Cobden and Hayson agent Renae Dickey.

In Drummoyne, a young family snapped up a three-bedroom garden apartment with 84 square metres of outside space.

Agent Matthew Ward, of Ward Partners, said he had more than 200 groups inspect the unit in three weeks.

“In 17 years I’ve never had so many people through a property as I had for this apartment,” he said.