Converted Port Melbourne shop sells $300,000 over reserve, vindicating bank manager's punt

The vendor of this converted shopfront still thanks the bank manager who, 35 years ago, lent her – then a single woman working part time – the money to buy this derelict shop.

“I was poor and faced with another rental hike, but I managed to get a low interest loan from the bank,” says vendor Annie Duncan. Today she was celebrating the Port Melbourne property’s sale for $1.75 million – $300,000 over reserve.

“Back then women weren’t really given loans, so I owe that bank manager a lot!” she says.

Duncan bought 388 Bay Street as an abandoned shop with broken windows, and it’s been a “labour of love” to get the three-bedroom home to its very liveable state, which includes a mezzanine retreat, once an artist’s studio.

A large and trendy crowd gathered at its Lyons Street rear, and a vendor bid of $1.3 million – the lowest of agent Hocking Stuart’s quoted range – brought five would-be buyers out of the woodwork.

Two of these – a man and a couple – entered the bidding after auctioneer David Wood announced it was on the market at $1.46 million, and pushed it to its sale price of $1.75 million.

An excited couple bought the property, which, as well as being Duncan’s art gallery in the late ’80s and early ’90s, was once a butcher operating a sly grog shop on the side.

There was far less excitement (and sunshine) in Sunshine, where a weatherboard in dire need of assistance, but on a corner block, failed to sell at auction.

A cluster of neighbours and developers gathered at 87 Fraser Street, with some of the former hoping the latter wouldn’t buy and build another “rubbish development” in the rapidly changing area.

Biggin & Scott auctioneer Frank Forti blocked out any first-home buyers in the crowd with his opening vendor bid of a “very low” $600,000 (first-home buyers may be entitled to a duty reduction if the property is $600,000 or under).

Forti made two further vendor bids, the last at $630,000, about $20,000 shy of reserve. However the developers kept their hands in their pockets, and everyone left empty-handed.