Melbourne auctions: Carlton fixer-upper in need of total overhaul fetches $1.455m
The tenants of a run-down Carlton share house that sold at auction for $1.455 million on Saturday said it felt “like the end of an era” after the renovator’s delight was snapped up by an owner-occupier with plans for a major overhaul.
With graffiti on the facade and messages painted on the interior walls, including the words “sex appeal” over one of the bedroom doors, the house bears the battle scars of close to 30 years as a student rental and share house that has hosted “a fair few” wild parties over the years.
The two-storey Victorian terrace at 438 Lygon Street, owned by the same family for 70 years, was one of 1019 auctions scheduled in Melbourne on Saturday.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 74.5 per cent from 821 reported results.
Current tenants, musician Jay Palomares and artist Max Isobe, confirmed they had hosted a few good parties and live music gigs in the home during the four years they had been tenants.
“You can’t live in a house like this and not have a few parties,” Mr Palomares said, adding that they made sure they were out of the house during inspections so they couldn’t hear “all the awful things people were saying” about their home for the past four years.
The pair watched on from the street as the four-bedroom home, which features a dilapidated bathroom without tiles and exposed water pipes, sold for more than $270,000 above the reserve.
Bidding opened at $1.1 million, with six active bidders quickly driving the price well above the vendor’s expectations.
A bidder who raised his hand late in the auction, with a $1.350 million offer, eventually secured the home for $1.455 million.
Listing agent Daniel D’Assisi from Noel Jones Doncaster said it was an “emotional” day for the vendors, too.
“It was the first home the family lived in when they first moved to Australia,” Mr D’Assisi said of the home, built 115 years ago, on Carlton’s famous Lygon Street, just a short walk from its popular cafes and restaurants.
“It’s got a lot of history,” he said. “During our opens, I met two different people who said they remembered going to a party at the house. One was about 17 years ago, and the other about 12 years ago.
“The family is ecstatic. They were hoping for something in the $1.1 million range. So, it has exceeded all expectations,” he said.
The new owners plan to renovate and add a two-storey extension to the rear.
“You would think it would cost anything upward of $500,000 and up to $700,000 to bring a house like this up to today’s standards,” Mr D’Assisi said.
Meanwhile, the current tenants were coming to terms with having to move out of their rundown but much-loved home.
“We will have to move out at some point … it does feel like the end of an era,” Mr Palomares said after the auction.
In Mulgrave, in Melbourne’s outer south-east, a home built and owned by the same family for more than 40 years sold at auction for $192,000 above the reserve.
The three-bedroom home at 3 Murdoch Avenue, built in the mid-1970s, on a 647-square-metre block, had a listing price of $800,000 to $880,000.
But five active bidders, keen to secure the large family home, pushed the property’s price up to $1.07 million, with an investor placing the final bid.
Listing agent and Ray White Glen Waverley partner Mark Lum said the strong result showed Melbourne’s hot property market showed no signs of slowing.
“Interestingly, just two months ago, a similar property in a much better condition, not too far away, sold for $1 million. So, this is an excellent result for our sellers,” Mr Lum said.
Mr Lum said demand from families seeking more space since Melbourne’s extended lockdown, as well as increased investor activity, were driving strong auction results in the area.
“The highest offer we had received prior to auction was in the high $800,000s, so this is the perfect example of why sellers should hold onto their property all the way to auction day,” he said.
“With money being so cheap at the moment and the historically low interest rates, there are a lot more investors buying property than they were a few months ago.”
In Melbourne’s inner west, it was another investor who managed to outbid six owner-occupiers, including several first-home buyers, for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom period home in Footscray.
With about 50 people watching on, the seven bidders pushed the price of the unrenovated home at 24 Windsor Street to $1 million, $170,000 above the reserve.
Listing agent Lachlan Bishop from Compton Green said the home on 154 square metres and close to Middle Footscray station and the cafes and restaurants in Seddon Village, was popular among young professionals, many of them first-home buyers keen to get a foothold in Melbourne’s fast-rising property market.
“At the moment, the supply of properties is just not marrying up with demand from buyers with interest rates being so low and that is driving results like this,” Mr Bishop said.
He said a low supply of houses across the inner city meant he was seeing people attending auctions “from all over.”
“As well as local buyers, we had buyers coming from Brunswick, Fitzroy and Northcote,” he said. “They can see that Footscray represents really good value, and they are saying things like, ‘If only we had discovered this a year or two ago.'”
Besim Kanacevic from Belle Property Albert Park expects to see more apartments in Melbourne’s inner-east hitting the market in coming weeks, now that the state’s moratorium on evictions has ended.
The agent, who on Saturday sold a two-bedroom, modern apartment in Armadale to a first-home buyer for $755,000, said demand among first-home buyers was still strong.
“Anything that is listed below the $600,000 range is attracting a lot of competition from first-home buyers,” Mr Kanacevic said.
“When you start getting into the $700,000s the first-home buyers start dropping off a bit,” he said.
Two bidders battled it out for the contemporary ground floor apartment at G01/70 Wattletree Road, which was listed with a price guide of $670,000 to $720,000.
The underbidders were a couple living in a regional centre looking for a foothold in the city.
Mr Kanacevic said the agency had been busy appraising dozens of apartments in the inner east since Victoria’s moratorium on evictions ended at the end of last month.
“I think we can expect to see more apartments coming on to the market in the coming weeks due to owners being able to give notices to vacate,” he said.
“You’re going to see owners that have had to reduce their rents and are having to make up that difference, or that can’t get the rents they were getting 12 months ago, looking at the market and jumping on it while it’s hot.”
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