Maroubra house passes in on vendor bid of $1.45 million

House hunters were out in force on Saturday for the last big auction day of the spring selling season, but actual bidders were light on the ground.

With summer just around the corner, buyers had plenty to choose from among Sydney’s beachside suburbs.

In Maroubra, where 13 auctions were scheduled, a corner block held in the same family for decades attracted just one bidder, despite its duplex potential.

“Let me know what you want to pay for it, and I’ll tell you if it’s enough,” auctioneer Kim Stewart told the dozen, or so, people gathered at the original-condition, three-bedroom house at 358 Beauchamp Road.

“I can’t bid on your behalf,” he added when he was greeted with silence.

The auction was paused so last minute contract changes, requested by the one registered bidder, could be made, but to no avail — with the bidder failing to make an offer when the auction resumed.

“I can’t get an opening bid, even after all that?” Mr Stewart said, before placing a vendor bid of $1.45 million at which point the property passed in. The figure was well below the $1.97 million paid last year for the similar-sized block next door.

It was also well below Maroubra’s $1.91 million median house price, which increased 1.6 per cent over the year to September, despite the city-wide median falling by 6.5 per cent.

Peter McGuinn of South Eastern Realty said he was increasingly seeing buyers opt not to bid at auction, in the hopes of negotiating a better deal after a property was passed in.

“We negotiated the contract, made variations to the settlement and deposit needed and then they failed to bid and thought they’d just sit on their hands and wait.”

“[But] we’ll probably sell this within the next 14 days, it’s Maroubra, you’ve got the beach down the road, public transport close by … it’s a knockdown or total renovation, but it’s got a lot of opportunity.”

With fewer than one in two properties selling under the hammer, vendors are increasingly relying on post-auction sales.

About a third of the Sydney properties that failed to sell at auction in September were snapped up in the following eight weeks, Domain data shows, with the bulk sold in the first four weeks after the auction.

Houses sold post auction spent an average of 46 days on the market in total, while houses for sale by private treaty took 68 days to sell.

Mr Stewart stressed that an auction wasn’t the end of a sale campaign, but part of the process. And clearance rates were down, he said, because sellers were still adjusting to the market level.

“The frenzy has gone … and until the market finds its level it’s going to be a bit confusing for a lot of people,” he said.

“In a market like this my advice to people is to be at the top of the slide rather than the bottom … if there are three similar houses for sale in the same street in a falling market, the first one to sell will make more money than the next one.”

The Maroubra house was one of 814 Sydney properties scheduled for auction on Saturday. By evening, Domain Group had recorded a clearance rate of 45 per cent.

Maroubra had the second highest volume of auctions after Manly, which had 14 properties scheduled to go under the hammer. Among them was 8/1 East Esplanade, which attracted five bidders.

Bidding started at $650,000 and climbed in $10,000 jumps, passing the $745,000 reserve and only slowing when it hit $800,000.

The deceased estate, which last traded for $265,000 back in 1997, was snapped up by a local couple for $819,000. They plan to renovate the one-bedroom apartment before moving in.

“To get five bidders is certainly good in this market, but it’s fairly typical of this [part of] Manly,” said Toby Hutton of Raine & Horne Manly.

Back in the eastern suburbs, a Coogee triplex with a reserve of $4.4 million passed in without a single bid. While interested buyers turned out for the auction of 12 Dundas Street, no one registered to bid on the eight-bedroom property.

Despite this Mary Anne Cronin of Phillips Pantzer Donnelley was dealing with multiple interested parties on Saturday afternoon and expected a post-auction sale.

Two blocks away, a rundown, beachfront apartment at 27/178 Beach Road passed in short of its $2 million reserve.

Four bidders turned out to compete for the three-bedroom apartment, but only one — an investor — made an offer, toping the opening vendor bid of $1.9 million with an offer of $1.925 million at which point the property was passed in.

“They all stood there looking at each other, then post auction there was a flurry between three of the buyers,” Theo Karangis of N G Farah Pty Ltd said. “There was more activity after the auction, than at it.”

Mr Karangis said the property sold to the investor, but would not disclose the result.

It was a different story at an auction at the other side of Coogee Beach, where four buyers pushed the price of 1/35 Arcadia Street up to $985,000 — $55,000 above reserve.

The two-bedroom apartment sold through Nick Simitzis of McGrath Coogee to a first-home buyer currently renting in a neighbouring apartment block.

“Properties are still attracting competition if they are priced well,” Mr Simitzis said.