Melbourne auctions: Clifton Hill home sells to first-home buyers for $1.645m in huge auction weekend
First-home buyers spent $1.645 million on a single-fronted terrace in Clifton Hill at auction on Saturday, beating four other bidders and smashing the reserve by $195,000.
The couple, Clara Reed and partner Paul Clarke, had been renting locally before buying the Victorian home at 16A Fenwick Street in the first weekend of public auctions after Melbourne emerged from a snap 12-day lockdown.
It was one of 1189 auctions scheduled as Melbourne’s auction market bounced back to a Super Saturday after its lockdown ended earlier in the week.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 76.5 per cent from 430 reported results, while 65 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
“We only had one open for inspection before the lockdown,” Nelson Alexander Fitzroy partner and auctioneer Cameron Ingram explained. “When lockdown ended we had opens on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to get people through to see the home.”
Rather than wait another week for the auction to allow more inspections, he said, the sale went ahead as there were no other properties available like this one in Clifton Hill.
“Coming out of lockdown buyers want to act, they don’t want to wait,” Mr Ingram said.
Bidding started at $1.35 million, followed by a succession of $10,000 raises. Once bidding hit the $1.45 million reserve, bigger increments were offered to try to knock other buyers out of the running, Mr Ingram said.
The stunning result followed the news that house prices in Melbourne hit a record median of $1,022,927 after rising by 16.2 per cent over the year to the June quarter, in figures from the latest Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday.
Nearby, in inner-suburban Brunswick, another three-bedroom terrace home sold at auction for $1.856 million – $156,000 above the reserve.
A professional couple from Abbotsford beat one other bidder for the property at 252 Brunswick Road, Nelson Alexander Brunswick partner and auctioneer Rick Daniel said.
The couple made strong bids, leaving others in the crowd who were thinking of raising their hands instead keeping them in their pockets.
Like other auctions, it had been held back a week to wait for the lockdown to end, with the wait paying off, Mr Daniel said.
“It was good to be able to get back out on the street again,” he added.
The vendors, who had owned the property since 2016, had spent the past five years renovating it into a turnkey residence. They had paid $1,375,000 for the property, records show.
“Single-fronted, two-storey terrace houses are very popular; people often pay a little bit more,” Mr Daniel said.
One of the biggest results on Saturday was in the ritzy suburb of Toorak, where two apartments at 49A and 49B Toorak Road sold under the hammer for $4.370 million, above the $4.325 million reserve.
Two different vendors had joined forces to sell the property, Marshall White Stonnington director and auctioneer Justin Long said.
While there were interested buyers, the auction opened with a $4 million vendor bid. Two bidders then fought it out and a developer won.
The auction had been delayed three times over its campaign due to Melbourne’s lockdowns, Mr Long said. But the result was worth the wait.
“It’s been a bit of a journey,” he said. “[But] oh my God, you bet it is so, so good to be back doing auctions in person.”
In Melbourne’s south-east, a two-bedroom Cheltenham home sold for $1.5 million – well above the $1.28 million reserve.
The house at 2 Rosewarne Avenue had been an investment property owned by the vendors for 28 years, Ray White Cheltenham director and auctioneer Kevin Chokshi said.
Heading into retirement, they wanted to offload the property and use the money for travel – once coronavirus restrictions allowed, he said.
The home garnered an opening bid of $1 million, with six parties fighting it out.
“A young couple from Greensborough were the buyers, so it’s a completely different area from where they come from,” Mr Chokshi said. “The attraction for them was to be close to the water.”
They had only seen the property just prior to the auction, with a buyer’s advocate bidding on their behalf, he said.
The couple will move in before considering what they will do next – either tear it down and build their dream home or subdivide for investment.
The vendors, who had paid $132,000 for the property in 1992, were extremely happy with the outcome, Mr Chokshi said.
On the other side of the city, in Tullamarine, an original 1970s-built, four-bedroom home sold under the hammer for $880,000.
It sold well above expectations of between $680,000 and $720,000.
A young couple from the local area were the winning bidders, buying the property at 23 Scampton Crescent to make it a family home.
Ray White Gladstone Park director and auctioneer Malek Younan said the sale was an emotional one as the home had been in the same family for more than 40 years.
Six bidders fought it out, with an opening bid of $650,000 setting off a flurry of almost 50 bids before the property sold.
“It was a very surprising auction,” Mr Younan said. “It’s an original 1970s home, has never been renovated and has had one family owner since then. It did really well.”
We recommend
We thought you might like
States
Capital Cities
Capital Cities - Rentals
Popular Areas
Allhomes
More
