Sydney auctions: North Epping home sells for $1,428,000, $228,000 above reserve

Properties across Sydney sold well above their reserve prices on Saturday with agents reporting results reminiscent of the height of the market almost three years ago.

Homes going under the hammer attracted big crowds and strong buyer registration numbers with another one of Sydney’s favourite spectator sports returning to a somewhat sense of normal.

In what may be the ultimate litmus test for the property market in the harbour city, a decrepit terrace at 112 Surrey Street,  Darlinghurst smashed its reserve by more than half a million dollars.

More than 100 people turned up to watch the five-bedroom property go under the hammer and 16 buyers registered to bid. It was one of 440 properties scheduled for auction in Sydney. By 6pm, Domain had recorded a clearance rate of 62.6 per cent, from 266 reported results. There were 74 withdrawn properties.

The terrace sold for a whopping $4,621,000 to a family who have experience in renovating homes of this scale, according to BresicWhitney director Shannan Whitney.

He said while buyer confidence had improved, the general market conditions remained cautious.

“Today’s result is not a beacon of hope for the market. It still has some uncertainty,” Mr Whitney said. “We need to assess these things not on one particular sale but on a broad range of categories and results. It’s important to not confuse these sorts of things.”

Another run-down house at 19 Holland Street, North Epping drew 10 registered buyers – two of them online. 

While the auctioneer was initially met with silence the sell-off got underway with an opening bid of $1.2 million.

Four of the bidders threw their hats in the ring, raising the price in $10,000 increments most of the way.

The three-bedroom property sold for $1,428,000 – surpassing the reserve by $228,000 – to a young family who were looking to upsize.

The Agency North selling agent Catherine Murphy said the property attracted a mix of buyers including first-home buyers and renovators. 

“Having 10 registered bidders is back at the same level that we saw at the height of our market in 2016-2017,” Ms Murphy said. “If we were in a terrible, dire market that everyone is talking about, today simply would not have happened.”

Ms Murphy said the market was more active this winter than normal because the lockdown in April displaced transactions.

“We missed our autumn market so I feel like our winter market has really been more of our autumn market and perhaps even a spring market combined.”

She said many buyers were holding off in the hope of buying for cheaper prices in the event of worst-case scenario predictions.

“There’s a whole camp of buyers [who] are really saying we’re going to wait until the market drops … it’s crystal ball gazing. What we’ve learnt out of this time is, who knows what’s going to happen?”

The Agency chief of sales and auctioneer Thomas McGlynn said while low stock levels were supporting property prices, the market would need to be flooded to make a difference.

“Even if we had an uptick of 30 per cent of property, there would still be a healthy number of buyers there to keep the market performing quite strongly.”

SOLD - $1,879,000

31 Gloucester Avenue, West Pymble NSW 2073

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In West Pymble, five parties registered to bid on a four-bedroom house at 31 Gloucester Avenue.

Bidding started at the lower end of the price guide at $1.65 million, rising in a handful of increments as all but one of the five threw their hats in the ring.

The property sold for $1,879,000 – surpassing the reserve by $179,000 – to a young Lane Cove family who inspected for the first time on Wednesday after selling their apartment this week.

Ray White Upper North Shore selling agent Thomas Merriman said strong buyer demand had outstripped the very small number of homes on the market in the tightly-held suburb.

“There is a shortage of stock. There have only been 10 sales this year out of almost 2000 properties in the suburb. We’d expect about 5 per cent of the suburb turnover on average,” he said. “That’s even better than 2017.”

The property last traded in 2006 for $585,000, the price more than tripling in 14 years.