Melbourne auctions: 'Caged cat' buyers pounce on Caulfield home, despite just one week of inspections
A newly renovated home in Caulfield, which had only been open for inspections for a week post-lockdown, sold at auction on Saturday for $1.73 million.
Four keen home-buyers, one who only saw the four-bedroom property for the first time a day earlier, were willing to bid for the stylish family home despite only inspecting it once or twice.
The large family home at 887 Glen Huntly Road was one of 1472 auctions scheduled across Melbourne on Saturday, the final weekend before the start of the school holidays.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 72.7 per cent from 523 reported results, while 71 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
Listing agent and auctioneer Wesley Belt from Buxton Real Estate Mentone said that, despite the home being listed for sale in the same week Melbourne entered a snap 14-day lockdown, which banned in-person inspections and on-site auctions, he convinced the vendor to proceed with the sale on Saturday.
“Basically, we’ve only had a seven-day campaign. We had our first open last Saturday and then opened it again Wednesday and had a private inspection on Friday night. So we’ve picked up four bidders in seven days,” he said.
The art deco home was renovated by one of the tradesmen who worked on Harry and Tash’s house at 364 New Street, Brighton, on the 2020 season of The Block.
Public records show he bought the Glen Huntly Road house in January 2018 for $980,000. The tradesman added a second storey and transformed it into a light-filled and contemporary home before listing it for sale in late May.
Mr Belt confirmed the vendor had been inspired by his time on The Block to buy and renovate his own home purely as a “speculative proposition”.
Bidding for the stunning home, which has a “dedicated first-floor kids’ level” with two bedrooms, a bathroom and small lounge or play area, plus a ground-floor parents’ wing, complete with a designer walk-in-wardrobe and en suite, began with a vendor bid of $1.6 million.
After a slow start, four bidders finally got involved, and the home was declared on the market at $1.7 million.
At that point, there were two parties left in the race. A bid of $1.73 million secured the property for young parents who had been looking to buy for two years.
Mr Belt said with such strong buyer interest it made sense to take the home to auction this weekend despite the short campaign, rather than wait two more weeks until after the school holidays.
Another two homes he took to auction on Saturday afternoon had only had a week of inspections. Both sold under the hammer after attracting multiple bidders, a couple of whom had only seen the property for the first time today. Mr Belt sold another two homes prior to their scheduled auctions this weekend.
“I think given we’ve only just come out of lockdown, a lot of people will want to escape the city for the school holidays, so my advice to vendors who had the interest there was to go ahead with the auction this weekend,” he said.
He said low stock levels and large numbers of frustrated buyers meant many home buyers were prepared to make quick decisions once they had had a chance to inspect a property.
“The analogy I like to make is that COVID has created a breed of buyers that are like caged cats because during these lockdowns they are sitting at home in their cages looking at these homes on the internet but they can’t touch them,” Mr Belt said. “So as soon as they can touch them and see them, they are ready to go.”
In nearby Malvern, a five-bedroom, two-bathroom home on 680 square metres that “has seen better days”, according to its listing, sold at auction for $2.94 million.
The vendors had lived overseas for more than 20 years and were unlikely to return, so they decided to sell the family home, which had been tenanted for most of the time they had lived offshore.
Public records show the home at 8 Lysterville Avenue last sold in 1997 for $440,000.
The home, which had attracted the attention of several developers, as well as an owner-occupier looking to build a new home on the large piece of land, was hotly contested by four interested parties.
The auction opened with a vendor bid of $2.5 million and, after consulting with the vendors over the phone, listing agent and auctioneer Steve Earl from Harrington Earl Estate Agents declared the property on the market at $2.65 million.
Competitive bidding pushed the final selling price to $2.94 million – $2.5 million more than it last sold for 24 years ago.
In exclusive Brighton, a block of land on the Golden Mile sold for $7,025,000 in front of a large crowd.
With a three-bedroom, single-level home on it, the 980-square-metre parcel at 20 Head Street was advertised as ripe for renovation or for a new owner to build their dream residence.
It was offered with a price guide of $6.25 million to $6.5 million, but five bidders pushed the price north in a hot auction.
“There is a shortage of good quality property, and land in particular, in Brighton,” Kay & Burton Bayside Brighton selling agent Alex Schiavo said. “Land is incredibly well sought after.
“There is certainly a lot of strength at the upper end of the market.”
In Highett, in Melbourne’s south-east, six bidders, comprising a mix of first-home buyers, downsizers and investors, battled it out for the keys to a two-bedroom unit in a boutique complex close to the popular Highett Road cafe strip.
Throughout the course of the campaign, Ray White Cheltenham director Kevin Chokshi showed more than 100 interested buyers through the property, including eight who registered to bid for the renovated, ground-floor unit at 2/4 Sandford Street, on Saturday.
With a price guide of $600,000 to $660,0000, six of the eight registered bidders put up their hand during the auction, pushing the final selling price to $743,000.
“In the end, it was a showdown between a first-home buyer and a downsizer, with a lady in her late 70s the successful bidder in the end,” Mr Chokshi said.
“She’d sold a bigger property a few months ago and wanted something smaller but not in a big block of units, single level and renovated, so this ticked all the boxes.”
The vendor had placed the home on the market after deciding to sell his business and relocate to Queensland.
“He wanted a lifestyle change and so he’s bought something up there… and he’s pretty excited to have cashed in here and is ready to move up and have a bit of a tree change,” he said.
Mr Chokshi said the latest lockdown seemed to have fuelled the strong demand from buyers even further.
“It’s like when you tell someone they can’t do something, they want to do it even more. So, since the end of this latest shutdown our open for inspection numbers have gone through the roof.”
He believes the strong buyer demand means Melbourne real estate agents are unlikely to get much of a break over winter.
“Winter is normally a pretty quiet time for us and I usually go to Europe every winter but I don’t think there’s going to be much of a break this year, similar to what happened in January when I had nine auctions, when I normally don’t have any,” he said.
“While vendors down here might normally wait until spring or summer to sell because we’re bayside and that’s when the suburb really shines, they’re not waiting. They are happy to sell in winter because they know the demand is there.”
With Elizabeth Redman
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