Melbourne auctions: Jittery first-home buyers stumble in fight for $809,000 Fitzroy North townhouse
Nerves ran high in Fitzroy North on Saturday, as jittery first-home buyers pushed a two-bedroom townhouse almost $60,000 above its reserve.
Anxious buyers – all young women who appeared to have brought their parents along for help – opened the auction with the wrong amount, lost track of the price and even bid against themselves during the sale of 17 Tempany Street.
The crowd of almost 50 people was largely made up of young buyers, keen to see how much the inner-city pad would sell for.
It was one of 471 auctions held in Melbourne on Saturday.
By evening, Domain Group had recorded a 74.4 per cent clearance rate from 356 reported results.
A young woman opened the bidding at $760,000 and was quickly met with silence from the crowd, given the price guide had been only $680,000 to $730,000.
“Really?” asked auctioneer Nazih Abbouchi of Ray White Coburg, as the crowd chuckled. The bidder quickly clarified she meant $660,000 and the auction was away.
Two women traded $10,000 and $5000 rises and the property was quickly announced on the market at its reserve price of $750,000. There was no break in bidding as another woman entered the fray.
A wave of disappointment clearly washed over young faces in the crowd as the price kept jumping, with two women trading bids “like a tennis match” – as Mr Abbouchi described it. The back and forth was so quick one party even gave a rise against themselves in confusion, while the other lost track of the price and had to ask, “What are we up to?”
After a last-ditch increase of $500 from one woman, the hammer fell at $809,000 to a mother bidding on behalf of her daughter – a first-home buyer who had been looking since October last year.
“We felt that it’s not a bad moment – it’s probably not a perfect moment as a buyer, that was probably a year ago – but we thought it was a good time to pounce,” said the buyer’s father, who asked not to be named.
The family had helped their son purchase a property about 18 months ago and said the market was completely different at the time. “No one was bidding on anything then,” they said.
They said they were mostly drawn to the location and the fact the property offered a standalone piece of land with no body corporate fees, which was unusual for the inner city.
“To get almost 60-odd thousand more than the reserve is amazing,” said Mr Abbouchi after the auction. “It just goes to show regardless of where the market is at, with triple-A properties in great locations, you can’t go wrong.”
The sale comes as Melbourne’s housing market has been picking up, in the wake of the federal election result, two official interest rate cuts and help from the bank regulator. The city’s median house price edged up 0.3 per cent in the June quarter, on Domain data, the first rise in 18 months.
Over on the other side of the city in blue-chip Sandringham, a “time capsule” at 62 Vincent Street smashed its reserve price of $1.05 million by $170,000.
After an opener of $900,000, four bidders threw their hat in the ring for the property, which had been held by the vendors for two generations.
While momentum was strong, the auction was on the longer side, with 44 bids traded in about 20 minutes. A family planning to renovate placed the winning offer at $1.22 million. Leigh Fletcher of Buxton Sandringham said there was an air of confidence among buyers, who had been turning out in much bigger numbers compared to last year.
It was a similar story in Albert Park, where a renovated Victorian was met with competitive bidding in front of a 140-strong crowd. The property – the only one for sale in the area this weekend – shot $140,000 above its owner’s reserve.
After an opening vendor bid of $1.3 million for the home at 81 Little Page Street, four wannabe buyers – most of whom were young professionals – traded blows. The winning bidder was a woman from Yarraville, who paid $1.51 million against a $1.37 million reserve.
Hocking Stuart Albert Park’s Scott Belsey said that 12 months ago, properties were mostly passing in leading to negotiations at the bottom end of the price range.
“It’s great to have such a quick turnaround in confidence after the election,” he said.
A first-home buyer, a family and a neighbour went head to head in Kew for a neatly presented three-bedder at 40 Vaughan Crescent.
The fast-paced auction quickly shot over the reserve price of $1.28 million and, despite numerous $500 bids, the hammer soon fell at $1,320,500.
It was the neighbour who was victorious in the end, according to Jellis Craig’s Danielle Balloch, after he bought the property to surprise his mother living next door. She had no idea her son was outside bidding for it, Ms Balloch said.
On the west side, local downsizers snapped up 25 Ann Street, Williamstown after it passed in.
The highest bidder under the hammer was outmanoeuvred in post-auction negotiations by another party, who paid $1.19 million for the property close to the train station and waterfront.
Leigh Melbourne of Greg Hocking Elly Partners said buyer numbers had taken a sharp turn in recent weeks, citing as an example one of his properties which had seen an unusual increase in buyer interest over its auction campaign.
“Normally numbers decline over the course of a campaign,” Mr Melbourne said. “But numbers have been greater today in week four than they were in the first week.”
Meanwhile in Northcote, two bidders competed for a renovated four-bedroom Victorian at 95 Mitchell Street, Northcote.
After an opening bid of $1.2 million, the price quickly reached its $1.33 million reserve. The buyer, a man upgrading to a bigger house from Abbotsford, held on up to $1,393,000 to beat out his competition.
“There’s strong indicators that the next few months will be buoyant,” said Sam Rigopoulos of Jellis Craig Northcote. “Low interest rates, lots of buyers and not a lot of stock – it’s really a perfect storm for sellers right now.”
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