Only 10 minutes from the ACT border, Springrange home sells for $1.203 million

A four-bedroom home in the locality of Springrange, only 10 minutes from the ACT border, sold under the hammer after a fierce bidding war pushed the price to $1.203 million.

The property at 165 Carrington Road, dubbed ‘Springbank’, sits on more than 22 hectares of land and had a flood of interest throughout the campaign.

A strong turnout of both buyers and onlookers gathered at the on-site auction, which listing agent George Southwell of Ray White Canberra and Yass said was a reflection “of the level of interest people have in real estate in the current climate”.

Bidding for the home kicked off at $900,000 and was quickly countered by a $950,000 bid.

Bidding continued in varying increments of $50,000 and $25,000 until the price reached $1.1 million. From here, auctioneer Frank Walmsley of Auction Advantage placed a vendor’s bid of $1.125 million before bidding came to a halt.

After a moment, the opening bidder increased the price to $1.14 million and another bidder countered it with a $5000 raise. The two parties fought it out with $5000 offers until the price reached $1.2 million.

Mr Walmsley tried to encourage the bidders to up their offers, even quoting Winston Churchill’s famous line, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”

The encouragement worked, and the two parties upped their bids by $1000. When the price reached $1.203 million, in favour of the opening bidder, there were no further offers and the hammer fell.

Mr Southwell noted Springbank had been under the vendor’s ownership for more than three decades.

“The vendor, Barbara, and Jeff signed the contract for this home on June 13, 1987,” Mr Southwell said.

“Now, after exactly 33 years, she’s bidding it farewell. It’s an emotional sale for Barbara, who is now over 90 years old, and her family. She’s loved the people here and the area but it was time for her to let it go.”

According to Mr Southwell, in the past month he’s had the “highest level of inquiry and activity in five years … and that’s across the board but mainly in our rural residential scene within an hour of Canberra”.

“We have four auctions coming up in the next month and we’re very excited because it looks like there’s a lot of interest in homes that are a bit further from Canberra city,” he said.

Elsewhere in Woden Valley, a three-bedroom home sold under the hammer for $740,000 at an on-site auction.

The house at 8 Batchelor Street, Torrens brought in four registered bidders and a number of onlookers keen to see whether the home would sell.

“We had to ask people to view the auction from across the road in order to maintain social distance,” said listing agent Jonathan Charles of Independent Woden.

“With the 20-person limit, we were cautious of how many people were viewing the auction.”

Mr Charles noted business will be “back to a level of normality” from next Friday onwards, as the ACT government lifts the number of people at indoor and outdoor gatherings from 20 to 100.

“Everyone wants to watch auctions and neighbours want to know how well a house will sell in their suburbs, so with the latest announcement, that will be made possible,” Mr Charles said.

“There’s a shortage of stock and a lot of buyers who are holding off … we want to make sure that stock doesn’t come on the market all at once.

“I anticipate that, if we don’t have a second wave of coronavirus cases, this could be the biggest spring that we’ve had in a long time.”