Melbourne auctions: Prahran home sells for $350,000 more than reserve in front of 'crowd'
A different sort of crowd gathered to watch the sale of a Prahran home on Saturday, with nearly 100 people tuning into a Zoom auction.
Marshall White agent James McCormack said if he’d been able to take 30 Trinian Street to a typical auction, the “crowd” would have been a similar size.
“We had five bidders and 96 participants,” Mr McCormack said. “It would have been a large crowd, no different to the Zoom crowd we had.”
It was one of 401 auctions scheduled for Saturday, the first weekend since all of metropolitan Melbourne returned to living under stay-at-home orders that ban public auctions.
By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 46.4 per cent from 168 reported results. 149 auctions were withdrawn, an unusually high number due to the public auction ban. As withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold, this pulls down the clearance rate. But of those conducted online, the auction success rate was 68 per cent.
Bidding for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house began with a vendor bid of $1.8 million.
It was just below the bottom of the quoted price range of $1.85 million to $1.95 million.
From there bidding was quick, passing the reserve of $1.95 million with fewer than 10 bids.
It sold for $2.3 million not long after, or $350,000 more than the reserve.
Mr McCormack said the bidding felt very natural.
“It was really great. It really felt like a normal auction,” he said. “People felt comfortable and confident to bid and it was transparent.
“Given the lack of property for sale and the quality of the home and the position, people wanted to fight hard to win it.”
Sellers Amy and James Lee said they had been initially nervous to go ahead with a virtual auction, but the pair said they’d been brought around.
“You had the natural nerves you had with any auction, right, but one thing we saw in our advantage with the Zoom was we could actually have more than 20 people involved,” Mr Lee said. “While we were nervous we could see the positives.”
The couple bought the house and renovated it with the intention of it being their forever home, but one too many kids meant it had become a little cramped.
Mr Lee said they’d bought a “renovator’s delight” up the road in South Yarra, and would soon get to work on their dream home 2.0.
“We’re ecstatic with the price because it lets us make our renovations quickly,” he said. “We learnt a lot from Trinian Street and we’ll use it this time.”
Earlier in the western suburbs, a Wyndham Vale investment property also sold above reserve.
Ray White agent Robert Krnjeta was quoting $399,000 to $438,000 for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom brick home at 100 Cambridge Crescent.
Four buyers contended with each other and an unreliable internet connection for the house, but it sold with just a couple of hiccups to a first-home buyer for $456,000 not long after.
It was $18,000 more than its reserve.
“The vendor was over the moon; the feedback through the campaign was in the low $400,000s,” Mr Krnjeta said. “They thought if they could get $430,000 and north they’d be happy.”
The sale showed online auctions could work, even for the outer suburbs, Mr Krnjeta said.
“A lot of agents have said online doesn’t work because people aren’t tech savvy but it just goes to show people want to buy enough [for it to work],” he said.
The market was still moving despite the new lockdown, Mr Krnjeta added.
“A lot of people are purchasing and upsizing so it hasn’t slowed down,” he said. “If they want to sell this year let’s put it to the market and get it sold.”
Closer to the city centre, Brad Teal’s Rodney Callahan sold a century-old bungalow in Moonee Ponds within its quoted price range.
The three-bedroom home at 813 Mt Alexander Road, had a guide of $1.05 million to $1.1 million.
Bidding started at the bottom of the range, which was also the reserve.
The two bidders were a buyers’ agent bidding on behalf of an investor, and an owner-occupier couple.
With just a few bids, it sold for $1,075,000 to the investor.
Mr Callahan said the sale was a deceased estate, but he was pleased with the price.
“It’s a good result for a 100-year-old weatherboard in that area,” he said. “It’s a Californian bungalow in good condition but to be able to make some changes is good, and it would come up nice [with more work].”
In Craigieburn, another three-bedroom home fared well at auction, selling for $37,000 more than reserve.
The home at 1 Crawley Court had a hotly contested virtual auction, easily surpassing the sellers’ $500,000 reserve.
“COVID didn’t stop anyone’s appetite which was brilliant,” Ray White’s Daniel Diamantopoulos said. “They would have considered much less. $480,000 was their rock bottom.
“But we got well over with the competition.”
It sold for $537,000. Mr Diamantopoulos said the vendors were pleased their beloved family home sold well.
“Happy days, they’d been there since 1992 and raised their kids there and had some great memories,” he said. “The kids went to the school down the end of the street.”
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