Records show the home last traded in 2012 for $1.89 million.
A pair of builder brothers bought a Concord knockdown for $4,024,000 at auction on Saturday so they could build a duplex and live next to each other.
The three-bedroom property at 8 Alton Avenue had DA approval for a duplex. The site will be an upsize for the brothers, who already live in a set of duplexes.
Six registered, and three actively bid on the home; all, bar one who didn’t bid, were interested in demolishing the existing home.
Bidding opened strongly at $3.9 million – $300,000 above the guide and immediately meeting the reserve – with a strategic bid by a local interested in knocking it down and rebuilding it for himself.
Then the auction crawled along, edging to $3,920,000, then $4 million, followed by $5000 and $1000 bids until it sold under the hammer for $4,024,000.
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Selling agent Arthur Syrios of McGrath Strathfield said buyer confidence was coming back.
“There is a lot more stock for the buyers to choose from, but in terms of land parcels like that, it is becoming extremely scarce,” he said, adding that buyers were snapping up land opportunities.
The vendor was happy with the result; she had let the property out as a rental for “quite some time”.
The home last traded for $1.22 million in 2009, records show.
Another duplex site, in Belmore, sold for $2,102,500 to a buyer from Campsie. The three-bedroom house in a quiet cul-de-sac at 6 Penrose Avenue attracted eight registrations.
Four actively bid; most were developers keen to secure the deceased estate listed without a guide but with buyer feedback of $1.8 million.
Bidding opened at $1.7 million and went up in mixed increments, ranging from $50,000 down to $500, until it sold above its $1.9 million reserve for $2,102,500.
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Ray White’s Jordon Le Breux said it is not a sellers’ market, but if a property is near a railway station, it will attract buyers.
“There’s not many duplex sites on this side of Belmore,” he said.
“A lot of people didn’t know where this was located, but when they obviously drove through the street, they were like, oh, wow, it’s a little pocket here we didn’t know existed.”
In Surry Hills, a one-bedroom loft-style apartment with a car space sold for $1,050,000 to a newlywed first home buyer couple. One of 25 units, the apartment at 25/498 Bourke Street was 70 square metres, including its courtyard and loft.
Three registered at the auction, and all three placed bids. Guided at $1 million, bidding opened at $950,000 and went up in four $25,000 increments until it sold under the hammer to the renting couple, who outbid two investors.
The vendor had held on to the property for 40 years as an investment.
Selling agent David Servi of Spencer & Servi Real Estate said the written reserve was adjusted slightly on the day. “The vendor lowered her reserve to the highest bid,” he said.
“There are a lot of people looking. I think they’re a bit cautious. I think people are a bit uncertain with an election looming; now we’re just about to go into school holidays and Anzac [Day] and Easter on top of each other, so I think April will probably be a bit of a challenging month.”
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LJ Hooker head of research Mathew Tiller said Sydney’s clearance rate of 68 per cent was “another good result for the year”.
Tiller said volumes above 1000 are good for auctions in Sydney.
“We’ve definitely seen a lift in buyer confidence coming from the interest rate cut … we have seen investor activity pick up as well.”
Tiller said that due to lower interest rates, first time buyers were coming back out.
“I think this year it’s going to be about interest rates. We have a federal election coming up … we have a budget coming up next week, and that will obviously lay the groundwork for the policies that the current government have in place, so there should be a little bit more assistance for first home buyers and the property market coming from that.”
with Elizabeth Redman
