Hit, miss. Hit, miss. Hit, miss …

Hits:

• 59 Studley Road, Ivanhoe. Substantial art deco house on 3000 sq m with city views. Quoted at $3 million plus, reserve $3.5 million, sold for $4.3 million. Two determined bidders will do that.
• 31 Hawksburn Road, South Yarra. Unrenovated Victorian terrace. Quoted at $1.6 million plus, sold for $1.957 million.
• 5 Glover Court, Toorak. Just 518 sq m. Sold just after auction for just shy of $4,000/sq m.
• 11 Dorrington Avenue, Glen Iris. Four bidders. Sold for $2.87 million.

Misses:

• 31 Lambeth Avenue. Usually a popular spot in Armadale. Double-fronted timber Victorian on 373 sq m. Passed in. Now offered at $1.7 million.
• 9 Spring Road, Malvern. Passed in with not a bone on the truck at $3 million.

In the next two weeks:

1 Hopetoun Road, 4 Forrest Court and 11 Cole Court in Toorak, 24 Somers Avenue in Malvern, 49 Harcourt Street in East Hawthorn. Either by auction or expressions of interest. Indicators of what lies ahead for the top end.

Oddity of the Weekend:

Open house party in a prominent Toorak street. Up to 3,000 people pay a $1 donation at the door for security. By event’s end the house is somewhat re-decorated. Ouch.

Agent’s quote of the week:

“It is a bit patchy at the moment.” Right. Well, now we know.

In a word? Mixed.

House warming for some, house repairs for others and only 12-ish weeks left for done deals prior to Christmas.

Spot the dummy?

Yup. They’re around. A warning: You Will Be Pinged.

Christopher Koren

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Bayside mixture thickens.

The past weekend was seen by some as a pivotal indicator of the Spring market: agents and sellers praying for a return to more buoyant conditions after a fairly grim Winter.

Early signs are to expect some improvement in transaction numbers, but only if stock levels increase and buyers can find fair value. The rapid swing in buyer sentiment over the past four to five months left many sellers isolated and their properties unsold. It has taken a quiet Winter for the penny to drop and for that backlog to mostly clear.

Who will be a seller and who a statistic over Spring? A lot rests on the agents. It’s up to them to keep their vendors in touch with the new reality.

What moved …

Bentleigh and its up-market cousin McKinnon performed well over the weekend: 10 sales from 12 auctions and nudging the median price along with several sales at the top end of both.

• The standout was at 3 Anne Street, high on McKinnon Hil. An extensively renovated and extended “Cal bung” on a relatively modest 580 sq m realised an exceptional $1,827,000.
• Nearby, at 20 Jean Street, a somewhat smaller version of the above also performed well. Modestly quoted in the $1,050,00-1,150,00 range, buyers ignored the “guide” and competed up to the eventual sale price of $1,315,000.
• Another strong result was at 17 Twisden Road. Again fully renovated to a high standard, bidders pushed the price above the top of the quote to a sale price of $1,460,000
• 51 Hill Street in East Bentleigh, an original weatherboard on a considerable 960 sq m found favour with builders and developers: sold for $1,330,000.

Even in this weaker market, well located land and exceptionally presented houses with the right accommodation and facilities are still attracting the attention of multiple buyers.

Hampton and Sandringham generally did well on low numbers of properties offered. Top price on the day was 23 Gordon Street, Hampton. On 1007 sq m, it’s a well located two storey 1930′s style house with plenty of accommodation. It sold for $2.8 million.

In an area better known for its period style houses, an offering in the Gipsy Village precinct of Sandringham stood out from the rest: 4 Susan Street, on 752 sq m, had renovate or remove written all over it. A bygone style from the 60′s, its position and land size obviously appealed and it sold for $1,400,000.

Black Rock outgunned its Beaumaris neighbour with the strong result achieved at 31 Arkaringa Crescent. A contemporary family house with all the goodies, on 914 sq m in a name street, it sold above the top of the quote range for $1,965,000.

And then to Brighton, where the news is less than upbeat.

19 auctions scheduled. 7 sold under the hammer or shortly thereafter, 2 sold prior, but with 10 passed in it would seem Brighton is still doing it tough.

Of those sold, the highest on the day was 42 Foote Street. Historically a keenly sought location a few doors from Elsternwick Park, the auction was lacklustre and the property passed in to a sole bidder at $1.7 million. Some persuasive arguments must have been put because it emerges the buyer ultimately parted with $1.83 million. Although it’s 689 sq m, the relatively narrow and constricting frontage of 13.7 metres dampened the enthusiasm of some wishing to build a new house on the site.

Another couple of land-value sales were recorded at 53 Whyte Street (698 sq m): $1,492,000 and 94 Dendy Street (643 sq m): $1,484,000

Again, anything at or over $2 million struggled.

• 284 St Kilda Street, passed in $2,000,000 – reserve undisclosed
• 100 Were Street, passed in $2,060,000 – reserve undisclosed
• 4/174 The Esplanade, passed in $3,200,000 – reserve undisclosed

Meanwhile, the mopping up continues with a number of sales of properties that have been on offer for months to many many months. Agents, ever bashful, have become very coy about disclosing sale prices. While they want the world to know they have finally sold a property, all sorts of reasons are given for not revealing any more.

Could it be that the price finally achieved was a long way South of that initially suggested?

And then …

75 Roslyn Street, Brighton. Sold for $2.64 million. In 2008, it sold when new for $2.58 million.

71 North Road, Brighton. John Knox House. It’s on 1700 sq m and was bought in original condition in 2007 for $2,200,000. Now extensively restored, rebuilt and extended, it sold in the past few weeks for a price we believe to be just over $5 million.

3 Wellington Street. Auctioned at the end of May, it was passed in on a vendor bid of $4 million, refusing a later offer of $3.8 million. We believe it has now sold for $3.75 million, but the selling agent will not confirm the exact price.

Finally to an Expression of Interest sale at 36 Gordon Street, Hampton (reported as Brighton Beach). An architect designed reproduction period house on 1500 sq m, it sold soon after the campaign closed for $3.38 million.

And also …

We hear talk of certain serious sales being made at the upper end. More on those when we are at liberty to report them.

Damian Taylor.

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It’s a limp toward Spring. At the top end buyers are still around and they’re being seen at inspections, but there’s little on offer to excite them. Disinterest rules.

We’ve been feeling the pulse of Map 58, trying to detect a heartbeat. Hardly a flutter. The agents will tell you that this is the usual Winter hibernation, but there are some indications that we’re nearing another Ice Age.

From the agents’ perspective, it’s a vicious circle: those who haven’t seen it all before can’t understand why people won’t give them their homes to sell while those same people are reluctant to buy elsewhere when there is so little choice.

There could be a break in the clouds after the September school holidays, but we doubt it.

And then, defying logic and expectations, a wood duck lands at 3 Avalon Road, Armadale. After an expressions of interest campaign that floundered for months, suddenly a buyer appears with, we believe, $7.5 million in hand. Or about $1 million more than we would have paid. Quack.

Saturday’s action at the top end, or lack of it, was confined to Boroondarra.

• 23 Chaucer Crescent, Canterbury, period house with a court, passed in with three bidders and sold afterwards in the high 3s. The vendors were originally chasing $4 million.
• 5 Callantina Road, Hawthorn, right in the centre of the Scotch mafia, again passed in and sold later: $3,330,000

They’re the kind of results which suggest that too many vendors are still ahead of where the market has retreated. Their choices are to wait the arrival of the endangered wood duck (see Avalon Road) or to lower their expectations.

Weather report

The industry offers an interesting mix. There are agents with the experience to survive even an Ice Age, but there’s a bunch of the younger crew who have never seen a real downturn before and will have to learn fast how to survive the chill; while end-of-epoch barren wastes are wandered by lonely dinosaurs who have still to come to grips with how their world is being changed by the internet – who struggle even with text messaging.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all dept.

The latest in off-market transactions. Last week, a new offering appeared at $20 million plus. But before the agent will tell you where the house is or how much you will be expected to pay, you have to sign a confidentiality agreement. Really? Kids, there are maybe five people in this town who are looking at that level and you don’t want them talking to each other, is that it? Could it be that the property is obscenely over-priced and you don’t want them comparing notes? Perish the thought.

Slow hammer, cont’d

There’s been a new development in the hammer saga. Slow hammers – when an auctioneer takes forever to knock a property down even after bidding has stopped – are now so very last week. Damian’s eye-witness report is below. It reinforces our argument that Consumer Affairs Victoria and the REIV must put forward a system that is fair to all parties. If bidders cannot take auctioneers at their word and don’t know even after a property is declared on the market whether they are bidding for the right to buy or only to refer, that adds yet another unneccessary uncertainty.

David Morrell

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Bayside battens down.

With little of substance on offer, buyers were in shut-down mode on the weekend: average to poor auction clearance rates and, more telling, very few privately transacted sales made during the week.

Brighton’s highest and only auction result was a modest $683,000 for 8/49 Wilson Street. There was also a mysterious $3.1 million sale recorded in Black Street; which we reported as sold weeks ago.

Although I am told there are a number of sales pending in the middle and top end, it appears that may be wishful thinking on behalf of some agents who are struggling to bridge the gaps between their clients’ expectations and reality.

Beaumaris and Black Rock had the week off and Hampton wasn’t much better with the better of two only results:

• 2/25 Keith Street, Hampton East, sold for $735,000.
• 36 Villeroy Street — a well located and renovated period house in the highly regarded Castlefield Estate  –  was surprisingly ignored. The highest bid was the vendor’s $1.51 million and the reserve is set at $1.65 million. When a property like this one fails to excite, alarm bells should be ringing.

Sandringham offered two properties with price expectations well in excess of $2 million.

Not unexpectedly, neither sold nor attracted a single bidder.

44 Tennyson Street pushed a lot of buttons: it’s in a blue ribbon part of the suburb, is a timber reproduction of the beachside style and offers all the fittings and finishes expected in a quality house. But … a family size property with this accommodation on only 590 sq m? The agent’s report was brutally frank: no bidders, reserve $2.25 million.

Nearby at 3-5 Heath Street, a generous allotment of 1813 sq m — formerly an aged care facility — was passed in on a vendor bid of $2.5 million with the reserve a fair hike further North of that: $2.9 million.

Bentleigh provided some hope with solid results in excess of a million dollars at two auctions.

3 Hobart Street brought $1,085,00 and 20 Talbot Avenue $1,210,000

Mr Gavel reinvents auctions

Over the weekend, we were on the receiving end of a new gavel bangers’ tactic.

We were bidding on behalf of a client on a property which had been quoted at $1.05-1.2 million.

Including us, there were three bidders. When bidding reached $1.2 million, we asked whether the property was on the market. “I will let you know,” came the reply. Bidding continued to $1.25 million. Same question, same answer. $1.28 million. Same question, and this time Mr Gavel sent his scribe inside to ask the vendor. Yes, came the answer and Mr Gavel loudly and unequivocally declared the property to be on the market and would be sold to the highest bidder.

At $1.33 million, we had exhausted the only other bidder and after making his first, second and third call, Mr Gavel was about to knock it down to us and then decided to head inside “…to seek final instructions!”

Pardon? Did you not say in front of this assembled throng that the property would be sold to the highest bidder? That’s us, Mr Gavel.

We were not quite that polite.

But, no, he went in anyway then re-emerged a full two minutes later and re-opened the bidding; urging the under-bidder to get back into the race.

That grubby little exercise cost our client another $20,000 before it was finally knocked down to us at $1.35 million.

Our client is now seeking legal advice on the laws of misleading and deceptive conduct and how to recover his $20,000.

Watch this space.

Damian Taylor

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This is a market every bit as fascinating as a 3am debate about who will win the wooden spoon. No choice, no zing, no heartbeat. And more school holidays only a month away.

Agents are now spruiking a flood of properties about to come onto the market; but even if that’s true (we suspect not), there are too few buyers around to soak up any tsunami.

An astronomer’s view: agents are on a different planet (“Just wait, the Spring market is around the corner!”) while a colony of vendors have moved into a pie in the sky where time has warped and it’s still 2009 (“The place up the road sold for $X last year, mine must be worth $X-plus this year.”)

Meanwhile, down here on earth …

Saturday’s auction of 11 Moorakyne Avenue, Malvern. Family home, Stonnington Estate, good spot in the heart of the school mafia, north side. Ticks a lot of boxes. Original expectation: $4.5 million or more, but the highest three bidders would take it was to $4 million. Sold … for $5,000 less than it brought in 2007. So much for the incredible gains you have heard about over the past year or two.

And that wasn’t a one-off. It gets worse. Drip by drip, vendor bid after vendor bid.

• 2/3 Martin Court, Toorak, vendor bid $2.7 million, reserve undisclosed
• 2/45 St Georges Road, Toorak, vendor bid $2.5 million, reserve $2.9 million (20%!?)
• 36 Chrystobel Crescent, Hawthorn. Seems like it’s been for sale since Collingwood last won a flag. Huge advertising campaign. Lonely vendor bid of $3.6 million. This is the same property that was for private sale last year between $4.5-5 million? A 30% hit?
• 29 Tivoli Road, South Yarra, vendor bid $2.4 million and surprise, surprise, reserve undisclosed.
• 34 Grace Street, Malvern. One bidder, passed in on a vendor bid of $1.65 million, reserve undisclosed (OK, it’s $1,980,000. Is the vendor dreaming?).

Passed in on a vendor bid. Meaning?

It’s not rocket science. An auctioneer can’t get a bid and so makes one on the vendor’s behalf in the hope of getting the ball rolling. OK. But when a property is passed in on a vendor bid, you may reach the reasonable conclusion that the vendor’s expectations are above what the market is prepared to pay. What should flow from that? The price is reduced or the property doesn’t sell.

But then …

Even post-auction, vendors are becoming more and more coy about what they will accept. There are now more undisclosed reserves than published reserves. Tread carefully.

Heard on Saturday:

“If I walked over there and asked him for $40,000, firstly he wouldn’t give it to me and if he did he would want a personal guarantee. However vendors seem to be opening their wallets without question.”

What’s that about?

The extraordinary amount of money being spent in advertising properties which go on to be passed in without a bid. You have to ask whether advertising to a wilting market is really a useful strategy or simply spraying money up against a wall. If it was our money, we’d spend $400 on the web and take a little holiday with what’s left over.

David Morrell

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Bayside asleep at wheel?

Bayside is in cruise mode, meandering along with the occasional rise and fall in the road, forever hopeful of something big around the next corner.

Buyers, sellers and agents all waiting and expecting something to happen. More choice? More bidders? More commission?

Yet the darkest cloud still looms: Are Australian property prices sustainable? If it’s true that moods make markets (and do they explain ours?), where will our moods take us?

It may not get to a debate but each week the rumblings are there and where there’s smoke …

Last week?

Not particularly noteworthy or newsworthy. Mostly plain vanilla properties recording similiarly flavoured prices or being passed in with no real bidders.

The few exceptions included a contemporary family house on Beach Road, Black Rock. On 880 sq m, overlooking Quiet Corner and offering bay views from the rooftop deck, it sold quietly for $2.55 million. In fact it sold so quietly that we are not permitted to divulge the exact address.

In Brighton, 10 Tovell Street sold at auction for $1.85 million and a town house at 6/6 Stanley Street enjoyed rare competitive bidding before being knocked down for $1.46 million.

Then there was apartment 4 at 36 The Esplanade. Located in Brighton’s first and only five storey apartment building, it feels like this property has been about forever. It was auctioned without success at least two years ago and had a repeat performance on Saturday: passed in on a vendor bid of $1.6 million against a reserve of $1.8 million.

There’s also a chequered history developing at 836 Hampton Street. It was recorded as sold for $1,244,500 in March this year. Over the weekend it struggled and was passed in at $1.1 million with a later offer of $1.05 million. The reserve is undisclosed but expect some pain when it does sell.

And then, in Brighton East:

• 22 Canberra Grove, passed in. Vendor bid $1.44 million, reserve $1.49 million
• 159 Dendy Street, passed in. Vendor bid $1.42 million, reserve $1.6 million

Hampton had a better day: five sales from five offered. 16 Highett Road at $1.5 million the highest on the day.

Bentleigh had mixed success on low numbers. Five sold in eight auctions. Bentleigh, usually, has the highest or close to highest clearance rates in Bayside. It’s currently a contrast to Brighton which appears to be saddled with a swag of top end property that buyers are treating with great caution.

And finally, under-the-radar Elsternwick recorded one of the stronger results of the week:  $1.95 million for 12 Erindale Avenue.

Oh, alright, we’ll say it again: Good property in the right location equates to good price, even in less predictable times.

Damian Taylor

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It is as quiet as it has been in 20 years. Even the 1990 blood bath had some transactions to make a noise about. We’re now in new territory for a lot of agents who have nothing but memories of endless listings.

Explanations? They’re wherever you would like to look: the election, the sharemarket, the footy (the footy?). But the explanations don’t alter the inescapable: there’s nothing out there and there won’t be anything significant for the next month.

Even off-market transactions trickled to near stand-still and, on-market, Map 58 was almost a no-go zone. Its highest recorded result was 58 Washington Street, Toorak. 850 square metres of arguably land value (the house is badly positioned, so renovation is not a happy option). It was first passed in and then sold for $3,350,000.

$3,350,000?

$370/foot? Nothing nearby has sold for less than $400/foot for months. So spare a thought for the poor developer who paid $500/foot just up the road not long ago.

Owner-occupiers? Gone missing.

But not so at 15 Loch Street, St Kilda West. A Victorian on small land. $3.94 million. At that price, who needs South Yarra?

Feel the magic?

There are some fabulously inventive agents out there. Now they’re inventing houses. We’ll get a call asking whether we have a buyer for a house an agent is yet to list. When we suggest we might have, suddenly that property is no longer available. Dare we suggest they’re sniffing for listings? Dare we suggest they try elsewhere?

Great disappointments?

Those publications hoping the spring market would bring an avalanche of advertising dollars could be looking at the perfect storm. Few listing at the top end and, further down the ladder, talk of interest rate rises persuading investors and first-house buyers to go and hide in Their Eskys.

We, the anomaly?

The quieter the market, the busier we become. The small gems which appear off-market become more and more appealing. That said, we’re now experiencing a first: we have more clients than there are properties for them to consider.

Oh, OK. We still bought four properties over the weekend. It’s not all gloom.

David Morrell

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Bayside: It’s been a long time.

A week can be a long time in politics. Ask Kev. A week in footy? Ask St Kilda. A week in real estate? Take a look around Bayside.

From bustle and hustle last weekend to doom and gloom (again). The Bayside auction market has more highs and lows than the The Big Dipper.

Only a few weeks ago it was curtains for any auction over two million dollars. Buyers were simply not biting, regardless of the fortunes in vendor-funded advertising bait. Last weekend that all turned around and then, despite the best efforts of Bayside’s finest (and still more marketing dollars), the past week in Brighton saw the bar lowered on anything much over a million. The best and only result under the hammer was 94 Asling Street, Brighton (the née Gardenvale bit). An old weatherboard with a railway station looming over its rear garden, it scraped to a modest $1,125,000.

Even conservative and stable Brighton East could not escape the glassy stares of onlookers. Hands firmly thrust into pockets. Nary a bid to be seen. The only exception was 4 Ratho Avenue and there the million dollar barrier was in no danger. It sold for $855,000.

At the pointier end, a big crowd gathered for the auction of a visually standout property at 24 Boxshall Street. Cleverly designed and constructed, yet not without blemish, it’s a lot of house for just 455 sq m. Probably more at home in trendy Elwood or Prahran, it failed to resonate with Brighton buyers: passed in by a somewhat bemused auctioneer on a vendor bid of $3 million. Although the reserve is undisclosed, we expect it to be around the mid-$3 millions with negotiations to move forward (sorry, Julia) from there.

A more traditional Brighton mini-mansion was offered at 10 Campbell Street. Despite the auctioneer’s exhaustive efforts to fire up the crowd, an opening vendor bid of $3.65 million was raised to just $3.75 million by a lone punter before a final vendor offer of $3.85 million was met with stony silence. New cards please. Reserve is again undisclosed but will have a four in front of it.

Hampton/Sandringham did not improve on Brighton’s performance: a solitary result recorded at 48 Mills Street, Hampton. A well renovated brick period house in the right spot, it achieved an expected $1.56 million.

Not so joyous at 12 Margarita Street. A contemporary family house, it failed to excite and was left on a vendor bid of $1.775 million and the asking price is now set at $1.85 million. The agent’s pre-auction quote of up to $1.95 million, suggests this one may have been initially oversold – with the published reserve indicating a willingness to now meet the market.

At nearby 14 Duff Street in Sandringham, the tea leaves indicate agent and or vendor may not be in sync with each other or, at very least, with prospective buyers. The pre-auction price quote was $1.44-1.6 million, a bit over a fair 10% range. Result? Passed in on a vendor bid of $1.58 million with a reported later offer right at the top of the quote range: $1.6 million. Outcome? No sale; and the published reserve is now $1.7 million. Just when you thought agents’ quotes were becoming more reliable and/or vendor’s expectations more realistic.

Beaumaris and Black Rock were about as (un)busy as can be expected at this time of year. Only a couple of auctions and a handful of private sales. The highest price for the week was the private sale of 28 Hardinge Street in Beaumaris. Smartly presented, contemporary, in the heart of the suburb, it changed hands for $1.75 million.

Bentleigh and first cousin Bentleigh East were also reasonably quiet with pre-election uncertainties keeping all but hardened or needy vendors away. Of the eight auctions scheduled, two sold before, three were passed in and three sold. Overall, about as exciting as watching the Julia and Tony show.

Damian Taylor

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