This four-bedroom house at 88 Raven Street, Camp Hill sold at auction for $895,000.
BEN Balderston was about to order coffee from a Stones Corner cafe before heading to the auction of 88 Raven Street at Camp Hill on Saturday when his phone rang.
Four kilometres away, Place Bulimba lead agent Joanna Gianniotis was trying to give away a bottle of French Champagne to the first person to bid on the four-bedroom worker’s cottage on 607sq m but no-one was taking the bait.
That had a lot to do with the fact that one of her star bidders wasn’t there.
Anna Spiro passionate about magical Birkdale house
Auctioneer Paul Curtain outside 88 Raven Street, Camp Hill
“I thought the auction started at 10,” Mr Balderston said afterwards.
At 9.06am, and with nothing but a vendor bid of $800,000 and some creative talk passing from the lips of Place Bulimba joint-managing director and auctioneer Paul Curtain, the auction was paused.
While the crowd of 40 waited, a sales assistant called the absent bidder.
“How far away are you?” she asked.
The main front bedroom.
The investment property, which had been rented out for the past four years for $615 a week, was owned by a software engineer who was watching from the main front bedroom as Ms Gianniotis put down the bottle of champagne and started working the crowd to gauge the level of interest from the three registered bidders who were in attendance.
The rear deck.
“I thought it was about to be passed in,” the owner said.
Mr Balderston, a local investor who was interested in land banking the property, had abandoned his coffee and was racing down Old Cleveland Rd to get to the auction.
At 9.13am he arrived, brushing passed onlookers and registering to vote over the front fence just as Mr Curtain recommenced the auction after finally gaining a bid of $805,000 from a family of four who were looking to move closer in to the city.
The crowd had thinned to half by this time but those remaining saw a robust auction of 35 bids as the family struggled to shake their new competition.
Mr Balderston stands on the road after arriving at 88 Raven Street, Camp Hill. You can register to bid at any time before the hammer falls at an auction.
“There’s strong demand for bigger blocks,” Ms Gianniotis said after the auction. “ And a lot are first-home buyers recognising the value of the land.”
SEE WHAT ELSE IS FOR SALE IN CAMP HILL
At $895,000 the family bowed out of the auction and the property sold to Mr Balderston, but they did not leave empty-handed.
“I always give away a bottle of champagne to the first bidder at my auctions,” Ms Gianniotis said.
Champagne has been part of Joanna Gianniotis’s auction campaigns for 18 years.
Mr Balderston may have missed out on his flat white coffee but there was a bottle of champagne for him also as the winning bidder.
“Lucky I rocked up,” he said.
The house was one of more than 50 to go to auction across Brisbane yesterday.
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