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A spacious, two-bedroom apartment in Melbourne’s inner south-east sold for $130,000 above reserve following a bidding war between seven first home buyers at Saturday’s auction.
The unit at 5/232 Barkly Street, St Kilda, guided at $650,000 to $700,000 and featuring separate living and dining areas and two bathrooms, sold for $830,000 to a young, first home buyer couple. The property’s reserve was $700,000.
Woodards Elsternwick lead agent Sean Rice said after an opening bid of $680,000, the auction went off, with seven parties bidding in increments of $10,000, $5000 and $2500.
“The home went to a lovely young first home buyer couple … and the underbidder was a parent bidding on behalf of a daughter,” Rice said.
Despite global uncertainty, Rice said that “good real estate sells under competition”.
“There is certainly confidence out there in the community, and most definitely people want to put their hard work and money towards the right property,” he said.
The property was one of 1764 scheduled auctions in Melbourne this week as part of the Super Saturday before the Easter break.
Meanwhile, in Melbourne’s inner west, a local buyer’s agent pushed the price of a single-fronted period house to $1.05 million – a price over the vendor’s reserve of $935,000.
The two-bedroom Footscray house at 25 Nicholson Street, featuring a large backyard with brick paving and garden, was guided at $850,000 to $935,000, said Jas Stephens lead agent and auctioneer John Galea.
Four bidders – three young couples and the buyer’s advocate, who was representing “a gentleman in his 50s,” bid for the home at the rainy morning auction.
“[At the end] there were tears of joy from both the owner and the buyers, a beautiful couple who bought it as their first home,” Galea said.
The vendor, who had purchased the house in her 20s, was selling it to fund the renovation of a bluestone home in Williamstown.
“It was a very emotional sale for her. She bought the home as a young lady … it represented her independence,” Galea said.
He added the crowd was “intimate” and serious rather than exploratory.
“Usually, we see a lot of people attending auctions just for market research, but they weren’t there today. It was strictly serious buyers who were already known to our business,” Galea said.
“The result was much stronger than we expected, but the lack of spectators is something I’ll be interested to monitor in the coming weeks.”
