Australia Day long weekend keeps Canberra bidders away

The Australia Day long weekend kept bidders away from the auction of a two-bedroom townhouse in Braddon on Saturday.

Nestled within a small boutique development, the quaint house was the only auction scheduled on the weekend. And with only one registered bidder on the day, the auction did not proceed. 

It did, however, bring in a handful of onlookers, keen to see if the property would sell under the hammer.

It sold later that day for an undisclosed price.

Belle Property listing agent Leanne Palmer said there were a number of interested parties eyeing the property at 9/32 Gooreen Street.

“We were one of the few [agencies] that started listing properties early,” she said.

“We had very early interest when we listed the house on January 2 … that was driven by the limited stock on the market after the end of 2019 and buyers having nothing to come back on.”

According to property records, the house was last sold in 2007 for $548,000. The property at 5/33 Gooreen Street is the strip’s highest recorded sale, selling for $870,000 in 2015.

Palmer noted that the vendor planned to sell the property in a bid to move into a house they bought in Ainslie, which they did a knock-down rebuild on.

Palmer said half of the people who viewed the property were first-home buyers – a group she predicted would continue to drive the market this year.

“I expect to see some strong prices in the next quarter,” she said.

The auction comes as new figures this week revealed Canberra house prices increased over the December quarter by 5.4 per cent. On a year-to-year comparison, the median jumped by 7.3 per cent to $788,621, according to the Domain House Price Report for the December quarter of 2019.

While there were not enough sales in the 12 months to December 2019 to determine a median for Braddon, the Inner North region had a 3.8 dip over the year to a house price median of $885,000.

Despite the decline, Palmer tipped the suburbs surrounding Ainslie in the north and Yarralumla in the south to build on its growth of the past five years.

“Ainslie was a high-performing suburb last year,” she said.

“Suburbs surrounding that, like Braddon and Dickson, are the suburbs I think we should be watching for stronger growth because they have everything that Ainslie has to offer but at a lower price point.”

According to the agent, the new homeowners bought the property for its location and “lifestyle that is on offer in Canberra’s north”.

This Saturday was one of the quietest auction days for the nation’s capital. However, activity is expected to pick up next Saturday with 37 scheduled auctions.