A freestanding 1920s family home in Bondi Beach has sold under the hammer for $4.45 million after four active bidders placed 24 bids between them in a race to secure the beachside home.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom home at 160 Hall Street was one 2,820 homes that went to auction in capital cities across the country last week. The volume was up on the 1,983 auctions held the previous week, which was impacted by the Melbourne Cup holiday and a reduction in Victorian auctions.
Meanwhile, the combined capital city preliminary clearance rate came in at 65.8 per cent, which is 2.3 percentage points higher than a week ago, according to CoreLogic, but below the spring average of 67.1 per cent to date.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
Owned by the same family for more than 50 years, the home is located in a leafy enclave of Bondi Beach, just a short walk to Hall Street village and one of Australia’s most iconic beaches.
Lead agent James Ledgerwood from Mcgrath Double Bay said four of the five registered bidders got involved in the highly competitive auction, which was being sold as part of a deceased estate.
“We had a price guide of $3.9 million and bidding opened at $3.4 million,” he said.
“There was a mixture of couples and young families bidding. People aspiring to secure a family home in Bondi Beach,” he said.
“There’s never enough freestanding houses in this area that are that close to the beach and cafes. It is a really quiet, tree-lined street and they don’t come up every year, they come up every couple of years,” he said.
Mr Ledgerwood said it was an emotional day for the vendors.
“We were selling the home on behalf of the sons of the estate and they were very pleased with the result,” he said.
“I think the neighbours were too, given it had been with the same family for so long and now it’s been sold to another family who will hopefully stay for a long time also.”
The home was one of 1,073 properties that went to auction in Sydney last week, up from the 1,036 auctions held the previous week, according to CoreLogic. This time last year, 1.020 homes went to auction in Sydney.
Sydney’s preliminary clearance rate was 68.2 per cent, up slightly from last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 65.5 per cent, which revised down to 57.2 per cent once finalised. This time last year the auction clearance rate in Sydney was 64.2 per cent.
Mr Ledgerwood described the inner-city Sydney property market as “balanced.”
“I think it’s a fair market at the moment. The clearance rate comes backwards a bit but good quality homes that are accurately priced are selling well,” he said.
“Houses that are lacking in some attributes and that agents have overpriced for vendors are struggling,” he added.
Unassuming Victorian terrace fails to attract a bid
In Kensington in Melbourne’s inner west, an updated and extended Victorian terrace has passed in at auction on a vendor bid of $1.250 million.
Lead agent Keiran Moloney from Jellis Craig Kensington said the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 8 Barnett Street had attracted interest from several parties during the sales campaign, including professional couples, young families and investors.
The vendors have owned the home for 26 years.
“During this time it’s mostly been used as a family investment but it’s been a bit of combination and at some stage some of the kids have lived in it and at other stages it was rented out,” Mr Moloney said.
Credit: view.com.au
Despite interest in the home, no one raised their hand during the brief auction on Saturday morning.
“We had two interested parties in the crowd but neither of them bid on the day,” Mr Moloney said.
“They both had other auctions to go to on the day so they were really waiting to see what happened with the other homes,” he said.
He said the house, which is unassuming from the outside, was renovated a decade ago.
“It looks like a little old cottage from the front, but inside you’ll see they’ve done a big extension and gone upstairs. The owners did it about 10 years ago,” he said.
Mr Moloney said the house will now be listed for private sale with an asking price of $1.29 million.
The home was one of 1.293 properties that went to auction in Melbournes last week, well up from the 474 auctions held the previous week in the lead up to the Melbourne Cup, according to CoreLogic. This time last year, 1,181 homes went to auction in Melbourne.
Melbourne’s preliminary clearance rate was 66.5 per cent, up slightly from last week’s preliminary clearance rate of 62.4 per cent, which revised down to 58.1 per cent once finalised. This time last year the auction clearance rate in Melbourne was 60.7 per cent
Mr Moloney described the property market in Melbourne’s inner west as “stable.”
“It’s neither a buyers’ market nor a sellers’ market. It’s somewhere in the middle,” he said.
“But there is more property for sale right now than the average amount,” he added.
“Anything that is brand new, renovated or turnkey is selling well. But anything that maybe needs a little bit of work or is land value is taking a little bit longer to sell.”
“With the cost of construction having gone up 30 percent, buyers are very nervous about going through that process so they will pay a premium if all the hard work is done for them,” he said.
Mr Moloney says even with many experts predicting interest rate cuts early in the new year, he doesn’t expect Melbourne’s inner city market changing too dramatically in the near future.
“The market is pretty stable and average at the moment and I expect it to remain more or less the same next year. A lot of people think if interest rates get cut then it will stimulate the market but you have to remember we are likely only going to see cuts of 0.25 per cent, so I think it will take several rate cuts in a row to get the market firing again,” he said.
Ballarat heritage beauty passes in
Meanwhile, in Newington, in Ballarat, a three-bedroom period home was also passed in at auction on Saturday.
Despite its central location and period features, including soaring ceilings, timber floorboards and ornate timberwork and windows, the character home at 1161 Eyre Street failed to sell.
It is now listed for sale with Ray White Ballarat, with a price guide of $650,000 to $680,000.
Ray White Victoria chief auctioneer Jeremy Tyrrell said auction activity in the state had returned to normal levels this weekend.
“Now that the spring racing carnival has wrapped up for another year, real estate takes centre stage with no other major events on the calendar between now and Christmas,” Mr Tyrrell said
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said he expected capital city auction numbers to be slightly stronger next week.
“We are expecting to see over 2,900 auctions held next week before scaling back a little to around 2,550 the week after,” he said.