Belmont acreage sells at auction for $1.85 million but buyers still cautious

It was a quiet weekend in the Brisbane auction market, with only 54 scheduled auctions and a reported clearance rate of 38 per cent.

Despite this, a grand five-bedroom house on two and a half acres (about a hectare) was sold for nearly $2 million in coveted Belmont in Brisbane’s south-east.

About 50 people watched as none of four registered bidders made a play for the architecturally designed home. Then a vendor’s bid of $1.8 million led a family of four to try their luck.

After a short negotiation, the vendors accepted the bid, and the house was sold for $1.85 Million.

Agent David Green, of Harcourts Green Living, said the lack of initial bids spoke to a market that was slowing down.

“What we’re finding is that buyers are really hesitating in the market at the moment. They’re really fearful of overpaying for something,” he said.

“There’s definitely been a slowdown in buyer activity. They’re sitting back and waiting to see what everyone else does.

“That’s why we didn’t want to muck around with them. We put a strong vendor’s bid to start with, to find out if anyone was serious.”

He said an acreage property such as this was rare and usually popular in the area, with auctions often seeing many neighbours in attendance.

“Very few acreage properties have come to the market, so I think some [of the neighbours] were interested in what it was going to achieve,” he said.

“Have a look it themselves to see how it compared to their homes. Those acreage properties in Gumdale, Belmont [and] Chandler are always extremely popular.”

The buyers, a young family of four, were thrilled to pick up a property of this size in the area.

“They’ve lived in the area for a long time, and always wanted to get onto an acreage property.

“All the neighbours are multimillion-dollar houses, so they felt like the opportunity was there to buy a beautiful home on a great acreage. They were rapt.

“We’re seeing lots of refurbishment of some of these bigger homes that were very stately in their day. This is exactly what will happen with this home,” Green said.

“It really is blue chip. It’s the last to go down in price, and the first to go up when the market returns.”

Nearby, a post-war home on 506 square metres in Camp Hill was sold under the hammer in a speedy auction.

Bidding started at $670,000, with the two registered bidders quickly bringing the price up to $735,000 in a minute or two.

At that point, bidding slowed down and negotiations began with the top bidder. Soon after, the final price was agreed upon.

A young couple walked away with the property for $760,000.

“It’s a perfect entry level home into the Camp Hill market,” agent Mel Christie, of Ray White Coorparoo, said.

“The people who have bought it are going to live there for 12months and then they’re going to renovate it, or knock it down.”

Christie said she had seen increased interest in the area from interstate buyers.

“Around 26 groups inspected the property during its campaign. Two of those groups were buying agents from Melbourne,” she said.

“I think they see Brisbane as a more stable market than the Melbourne and Sydney market at the moment.

“I just had another buyer from Sydney that inspected this property [buy] another one of mine this week before it went to auction.”

The house had been in the family since it was built in 1962. Having already moved to northern Queensland, the vendors were excited to see the property sold.

“I got a big hug and a thank you, so I think he was pretty happy,” Christie said.