Canberra auctions: First-home buyers nab Ngunnawal home for $775,000

A three-bedroom house in Ngunnawal sold under the hammer on Saturday morning for $775,000 to first-home buyers who have been on the hunt for five months.

A crowd of 30 gathered to watch the property at 4 Mura Close, located on a quiet cul-de-sac, go under the hammer.

Bidding for the home kicked off at $500,000 and quickly made its way past the $700,000 mark in $25,000 increments thanks to five of the nine registered parties.

The stride then shortened to $10,000 and $2000 bids. Finally, the eventual home owners, Hayley and Tom, who gave only their first names, entered the race when they made an offer of $740,000.

From here, it became a two-horse race with the price rising quickly in various $3000 and $2000 increments. 

At $775,000, auctioneer and selling agent Mark Larmer of Independent Our Team asked for any more offers, and the underbidder, who had consistently increased the price by $2000 rises throughout the process, reluctantly pulled out of the race, and the hammer fell.

“I think there was a mix of emotions from the buyers today. There were parties who missed out on three to five homes, so they were a bit more motivated in their bidding today,” Mr Larmer said.

First-home buyers Hayley and Tom are originally from Canberra but spent the past few years in New Zealand.

“We started house hunting as soon as we returned in January. We knew we’d want to settle down in Canberra, so that’s what we did,” Hayley said.

“This auction makes it our fourth and coming in today, we weren’t feeling very lucky, and because there are a lot of other parties who are in the same position as us, we didn’t want to be too hopeful.”

The median house price in Ngunnawal was $600,000 over the 12 months to March 2021, an increase of 11.4 per cent from the previous year, the latest Domain House Price Report found.

Tom said they initially looked at houses in Harrison in Gungahlin but “were priced out really early in our property journey”.

“We then started to extend our search from the Gungahlin region to Weston Creek. We wanted something in Canberra’s north, so we’re quite lucky now to have found something in the Gungahlin region,” he said.

“We came back at the peak of the property market, so we’re just really stoked to finally have something of our own after so long. We finally did it.”

Mr Larmer said the property took four to five weeks to prepare before it hit the market.

“Some agents are quick to pop a home for sale online, but it pays to slow it down and do the prep work including maintenance, new carpets, landscaping, and fresh paint – the whole thing,” he said.

“The success of an auction is determined by the pre-market preparation.”