Family pays $220,000 above reserve for Stanmore ‘renovators delight’

A family from Newtown paid $220,000 above the reserve for a four-bedroom renovator’s delight in Stanmore, which sold under the hammer for $2.52 million on Saturday.

The two-storey terrace home at 106 Cavendish Street, which was considered unlivable had remained unrenovated for decades, was guided at $2.2 million.

The home had five registered bidders and three active during the auction, all looking to upsize into western Sydney.

The Stanmore property was one of 885 auctions scheduled in Sydney last week. By evening, Domain recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 45 per cent from 490 reported results, while 184 auctions were withdrawn.

Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.

Bidding in Stanmore opened at $2.1 million with offers of $50,000, $20,000 and $10,000 increments following.

The price reached its reserve of $2.3 million and continued to climb until it was called three times at $2.52 million where it sold under the hammer.

Gerber Properties’ Nicole Gerber said the property would cost at least $1 million to make it livable.

“I think it’s very interesting that such a property that is actually not livable… in this market and these conditions actually sold,” Gerber said. “I think people sort of fell in love with the dream of what it can be.”

The vendor, who was thrilled with the result, grew up in the home which had been in the family since the 1950s.

In Epping, a five-bedroom house at 17 George Street with a $3.2 million to $3.5 million guide, sold for the unusually precise number of $3,419,168 to an upsizer from Castle Hill.

Five bidders registered and three competed for the grand family home.

Bidding opened at $2.8 million and rose in $100,000, $50,000, and $1000 increments. When the price reached $3.4 million the $3.5 million reserve was adjusted down by $100,000, and it was put on the market. After forty or so minutes from start to finish the home sold for $3,419,168.

Uniland Real Estate’s Andy Lin said the interested buyers had upsized to Epping.

“The market is still tough,” Lin said. “Agents are finding it much harder to sell a property at auction, and only property with a good location and good land can still sell, but they also drop in price compared to last year [by] around seven to 10 per cent.”

The vendor is downsizing to the Hills area, with the house last trading for $480,000 in 2002, records show.

In Allambie Heights a three-bedroom house at 22 Kirra Road sold at its guide price of $2 million, but below the $2.05 million reserve. It last sold in 2020 for $1,235,000 records show.

Four bidders registered for the renovated mid-century property with butterfly roofline, but only two competed, with the buyer from Camperdown becoming the new owner.

Bidding opened at $1.8 million and quickly jumped in $50,000, $20,000 and $10,000 increments until it sold under the hammer.

“People loved that the quality was high, of the rebuild in 2021,” McGrath Manly’s Tim Cullen said. “There was nothing to do. It was move-in ready, ready to go.”

It also offered a good opportunity for the vendor to upsize, he said.

“It’s the best climate I’ve ever seen to trade up,” Cullen said. “So when people say, ‘Is it a good market or a bad market?’,” It depends on your current situation.”

LJ Hooker’s head of research and business intelligence Mathew Tiller said Sydney’s clearance rate of 45 per cent meant buyers and sellers were sitting on the fence.

“There is still a lot of price pressures in the economy at the moment, which I think will probably lean the RBA more to [interest rate] hiking than holding,” Tiller said. “So that will obviously affect confidence again.

“Given we’re in the spring selling season, and it’s meant to be the height of confidence for the property market, we’re just not seeing that come through this spring.”