Banks home sets suburb record at auction, selling for $1.21 million

A five-bedroom home in Banks has set a suburb record after it sold at auction for $1.21 million, surpassing the previous benchmark by $80,000.

The house at 13 Galbraith Close sits on more than 1210 square metres of land with views towards Rob Roy Nature Reserve – a drawcard for the eventual buyers, says selling agent Mark Wolens of Independent Woden.

“It’s a three-level house on an elevated block of land that has magnificent views from every corner of the house,” Mr Wolens said.

Mr Wolens said the auction campaign had a lot of interest with the property bringing in more than 80 groups and several pre-auction offers. On the day of the auction, four parties registered to bid.

“The house brought people from different areas of Canberra and different demographics,” Mr Wolens said.

“We had people from their late 20s to mature-age couples looking at the house, people who trekked from Belconnen and even had one bidder who was from NSW.” 

An opening bid of $950,000 kicked off proceedings. Three of the four registered parties actively bid for the home with the price swiftly making its way to the $1.17 million mark.

From here, it whittled down to a two-horse race with the hammer eventually falling at $1.21 million. In total, 22 bids were made for the home.

The new buyers lived in the area but were looking to upsize and No.13 Galbraith Close ticked all the boxes, Mr Wolens said.

The sellers decided to part ways with the house because they were relocating for work purposes.

Mr Wolens had been “reasonably confident” the home would break the suburb record because of the high buyer demand he was currently seeing in the market.

“Only a few months ago, I sold a home in Gilmore which broke the suburb record after only three days on market,” he said.

“The market has continued to show strength especially in the Tuggeranong areas.”

According to government records, Banks’ previous suburb record was set in 2019 by the house three doors down at 7 Galbraith Close for $1.13 million.