Griffith home offered for the first time in over 60 years sells for $1.2 million at auction

A four-bedroom home in Griffith on the market for the first time in 61 years and sold under the hammer for $1.2 million on Saturday morning as more than 50 onlookers gathered outside the property.

Dozens inspected the home at 60 Captain Cook Crescent, with listing agency Blackshaw Manuka stopping people from entering the house itself when it reached capacity.

This comes after ACT chief minister Andrew Barr moved to stage two of the national COVIDSafe Australia framework at midnight on Friday.

Under the plan, real estate agents can host up to 20 people at on-site auctions and open homes as long as they do not exceed the one person per four square metre rule.

The crowd convened around the front lawn of the property once they returned outside, spaced apart from each other, with Blackshaw auctioneer Robert Westropp-Evans asking everyone to maintain social distance.

As well as hosting the auction on-site, Blackshaw also utilised online auction platform AuctionNow for those unable to attend.

Mr Westropp-Evans, who listed the property with Andrew Chamberlain, said there were 10 registered bidders, including one online. Six bidders actively participated in the auction.

Opening bids for the home kicked off at $900,000, quickly countered by a $20,000 raise. A third bidder then entered the race with a $940,000 bid before an online bidder made a $960,000 offer.

Bidding continued in $20,000 and $10,000 increments until the price reached $1.1 million, at which point Mr Westropp-Evans announced the property was on the market and started accepting $5000 bids.

From here, existing parties fought for the keys of the home before a new party made a $1.14 million offer. The new entrant and the third bidder continued to outbid each other with $5000 increases until the price reached $1.175 million in favour of the third bidder.

The hammer was just about to fall when the new bidder decided to take the price to $1.2 million. With no forthcoming bids, the new party walked away as the new owner.

“The atmosphere was chilly but when you have 10 registered bidders, with nine of those on-site, you can imagine the energy in the air,” Mr Chamberlain said.

“The market is good and this is typical of what auctions were like before COVID-19. Without any restrictions, I imagine we would’ve had twice the number of people attending the auction today.

“We had a lot of online interest for the house because it’s in original condition so, there’s been a number of people who were interested in making a few changes to the property but still retain many of its character features.”

Mr Chamberlain noted that the home was under the vendor’s ownership for a long time, making the sale a bittersweet moment for the family.

“Now that both parents have passed away, the three siblings decided to sell their home,” Mr Chamberlain said.

The new buyers are a young family who had been looking to move into the Inner South area.

Elsewhere, a four-bedroom home in Wright sold under the hammer at an on-site auction for $1.05 million with one registered bidder.

According to listing agent Will Honey of Independent, interest for the property at 17 Dunphy Street was quite high throughout the campaign, with 35 groups through in advance.

“We thought we’d have two or three registered bidders for the home but despite having only one bidder on the day, we still managed to get a sale,” Mr Honey said.

“People are cautious but still interested in buying properties.”

According to Mr Honey, the vendors were downsizing after building the home to cater to their teenage kids.

“Now that the kids have grown up, the vendors want to downsize … the new buyers are a young family with their own kids as well [and] the design of the home lent itself to a family who would take advantage of the space it offers,” he said.

As the ACT government moves to relax further restrictions in coming weeks, Mr Honey said confidence is slowly returning to the market for buyers and sellers.

“Each week is getting better with buyer confidence and particularly sellers … there are more people who want to list their homes now compared to four weeks ago and those houses are meeting existing buyers’ requirements,” Mr Honey said.

“There is a flow-on effect when confidence is in the market.”