Burbs Auctions April 16th - Update

84 Long Street West: a new contemporary-look house on a block just under 600sqm.

I must admit, I didn't think this property had a cat-in-hell's chance of making the $1m mark, possibly because it's just a large ugly box with a nice paint job. Clearly, BCC's Planning department, is still open to incentives in exchange for permission to build modern eye-sores in character suburbs. It's the type of house that's just about acceptable in a rundown inner-city suburb. But I digress.

The Bidding opened, after much cajoling, at $850k and the auctioneer painstakingly dragged it toward the $950k mark before the vendor had to step in at $1m to get things going again. I thought proceedings would conclude on the vendor bid but someone (unsighted by me) took it to $1.05m, at which point another bidder  went to $1.06m but the auctioneer appeared reluctant to go to $10k increments albeit he accepted the higher bid. At this point, the unsighted bidder decided to move the bid straight to $1.1m from $1.06m. Maybe it's just me, but that seems a little strange (why pay $1.1m when you could potentially pay 1.07m, etc). I've seen something similar happen at an auction run by this agency in the recent past. I had to leave at this point (much to my regret) but I don't think this sold, and certainly, the reluctance of the auctioneer to move to $10k increments at the $1.05m mark suggests to me that the vendor target price was well north of this. As I said previously, I thought the property would be lucky to reach the $1m mark and was staggered when it failed to be declared "on the market" at $1.05m

To 121 (?) Hassall Street now for the auction of a small post-war house on 1300sqm (much of it sloping away). Having been on the market for several months without success, the owners clearly grew impatient and an auction was announced. When it initially went on the market, the agent said he was looking for an offer in the $1.3m area. At the auction, two bidders took the bidding to $820k at which point it was declared on the market and went under the hammer at $835k. Now, that is an impressive revision of vendor expectations: $1.3m to $835k. That's a 36% discount to the original asking price! I'd love to know how that came about. Perhaps I'll knock on their door and ask.

**I have since rung the agent about Long Street West and a colleague of his informed me that the property went under contract post the auction at 'north of $1.2m'. The listing has yet to be removed from realestate.com.au or identified as Under Contract. While not that unusual in itself, it'll be worth watching to see whether this transaction completes.