An Aussie family returning home after working in San Francisco headed back to their roots in Burwood Heights to buy a five-bedroom Victorian manor for $5.7 million at auction on Saturday.
The family had inspected the property one week prior before purchasing the grand scale home at 19 Claremont Road.
Five people registered and three actively bid on the house guided at $4.9 million. Bidding opened at $4.7 million and rose in varying increments of $100,000, $50,000 and $20,000 in front of a crowd of 150 people. In minutes bidding went above the $5.4 million reserve by $300,000.
The Burwood Heights family home was the most expensive auction result on the weekend.
The vendor will be moving to a nearby waterfront property also in the inner west.
It was one of 363 homes scheduled to go under the hammer in Sydney on the weekend. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 56.3 per cent from 231 reported results, while 61 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
Selling agent Tarun Sethi from McGrath Strathfield said the home sold for a suburb record and the buyer was drawn to the grand scale design and plans to move in as is.
In Monterey, a beachside suburb south of Brighton-le-Sands in southern Sydney, a family who had held their five-bedroom, three-bathroom home for 54 years let it go at auction for $3.8 million.
Seven people registered to bid on 19A Burlington Street and five made offers on the family home sitting on 1012 square metres with development potential.
Bidding opened at $2.8 million with $100,000, $75,000 and $50,000 bids jumping above the $3.3 million guide and the $3.7 million reserve which was adjusted down from $4 million on the floor.
Selling agent Gina Alexiou from McGrath Beverly Hills said the $3.8 million price was a great result.
“I think they just wanted us to work for our money, we were happy to do so. They said, ‘Look, we’re happy to adjust [reserve] on the day, we just want to see where it goes.’”
The buyer was a couple who plan to rent it out initially, with future plans to develop the site.
Alexiou said buyers were attracted to the site due to the rarity.
“This land doesn’t come up often. It normally stays in the family for years. This was a family estate for over 54 years.”
LJ Hooker head of research Matthew Tiller said the 363 scheduled results were very low for a normal Saturday with no public holidays.
“Maybe school holidays affected [the scheduled results]. Also that midwinter period is always traditionally a softer, listed market,” he said.
“We are expecting this to pick up over the coming months. [We’ll] probably have an early spring selling season, as people look to list their properties, in the face of rising interest rates, downsize their mortgages. And take advantage of the strong buyer demand that is out there in the market at the moment.”
In Castle Hill an immaculately renovated five-bedroom, five-bathroom family home sold for $3,350,000.
Five people registered and four actively bid on the house located at 61 Cambewarra Avenue and guided at $3 million.
Auctioneer Michael Garofolo from Cooley Auctions took an opening bid of $2.9 million.
Bidding quickly jumped to $3.2 million and then rose in $50,000 and $25,000 jumps above the $3.3 million reserve until it reached the winning bid.
The buyer is from St Ives and had offered $3.2 million a week prior to auction. The vendor had completed the renovations on the property and, due to have their fourth child, will be moving to a bigger property.
Selling agent Dean Muriti from Louis Carr Castle Hill said there is a lack of stock in the marketplace.
“It was beautifully renovated and there’s nothing like it in the marketplace at a price point that a lot of people want to be in. Not a lot have a good quality stock like this.”
Elsewhere, a five-bedroom three-bedroom redbrick knockdown sold for $1,506,000 in Hornsby Heights.
The property located at 10 Waddell Crescent was not styled and was listed without photos of the interior due to clutter and assumed knock down intentions.
The price guide of $1 million - $1.1 million piqued a lot of interest. A whopping 30 people registered for the auction making it the highest number of registered bidders for the Ray White Group on Saturday, in front of a crowd of 150.
Ten people actively bid on the 1970s red brick home that was built by a couple from that era who have since died. Their adult son had been living in the home and now intends to caravan out of Sydney.
Selling agent Alex Iannuzzelli from Ray White Upper North Shore said most people were factoring at least $300,000 for renovation work.
The buyer was excited to upsize to a bigger home where their children will get a room each. They plan to do some renovations.