Auctions and footy finals: Brisbane's big weekend winners

Rumba-like auction bidding mesmerised a 50-strong crowd at Ascot on Saturday, lifting to Brisbane’s top sale price on Australia’s biggest football weekend of the year.

The public auction of the renovated five-bedroom Queenslander on its generous 810-square-metre block drew four registered bidders, who pushed its sale price up to $1.95 million.

Agent Dwight Ferguson, of Ray White Ascot, says all registered bidders “had a go” on the day, but the auction was knocked down to a “very excited buyer moving back from London”.

The couple and their young son had attended every open house of the campaign, and were delighted to finally have “a big back yard”.

Bidding opened at $1.5 million and moved quickly before slowing, pausing and resurging at the end.

“It was like a rumba, very quick, slow, quick,” Ferguson says.

“Fast from the start with $50,000 [incremental] bids, quickly getting to $1.8 million and then shut down to $10,000 bids and we managed to get the highest bidder to $1.89 million, where it paused.”

Once announced on the market, other bidders returned to the action.

“That was when we saw the pace quicken again, albeit in smaller increments of $5000, up to $1.935 million before the buyer offered $1.95 million, and that did it. It was the knockout bid,” he says.

The inner-north-east agent says he was unsurprised by the standout result, which he claims is a record sale price for suburban residential property east of Racecourse Road.

“It was a really stunning, renovated Queenslander and had attracted 70 to 80 groups through during its openings, so we knew it was drawing a lot of interest pre-auction; that sort of home on the big block of land is definitely right back in vogue.”

The “delighted” vendors plan to stay in the area, and will now go shopping for their next family home, he says.

Alas, most Brisbane vendors who went to auction on the nation’s double football code grand final weekend, partnered with buyers who were not so upbeat.

City wide sale numbers ebbed week on week, with only 36 per cent of reported auctions returning sale results, down from last week’s 45 per cent clearance rate.

Agents expect this result blip to rebound now the football season and Queensland school holidays are over.

The second-highest sale result on Saturday was recorded in Lutwyche in Brisbane’s inner north, when a modern colonial-style residence on 964 square metres of land delivered a $1,886,000 sale price.

Agent Debora Sutton, of Belle Property, declined to comment on the sale, which trumped Brisbane’s next highest – a rundown, three-bedroom house on 948 square metres in Indooroopilly – by a whopping $597,000.

Another top sale for the day, despite its untimely clash with the start of the AFL grand final, was a double-block listing in Morningside, five kilometres east of the CBD.

The 810 square metres of developable land and its liveable, three-bedroom house drew 10 registered bidders.

Bidding opened at $900,000 and jumped in $50,000 increments to stall at $1.14 million, agent Mel Christie, of Ray White Coorparoo, reports.

Private negotiations ensued and the property sold under the hammer at $1.16 million in front of an outdoor crowd of 50.

“There are not too many 810-square-metre blocks next to Balmoral, so I always thought it would get beyond $1 million,” Christie says.

“But, I admit I was quite concerned when I realised the time, 3pm, clashed with the AFL final.

“Then the storm rolled in and, just before we called it for the first time, there was a huge clap of thunder.

“It created a real sense of urgency to wrap up the auction and get under shelter.”