84 Rae Avenue, Edithvale was one of only a handful of Melbourne homes to sell via online auction last week.
Deals are still being done in Melbourne’s locked-down market, but only a handful of buyers are willing to “take the punt” of purchasing homes sight-unseen.
Just 11 homes went under the hammer in Melbourne last week, according to CoreLogic — down dramatically from 1020 auctions on the same weekend last year.
Seven of them were reported as sold, including that of an Edithvale property that soared $63,500 above reserve at an online auction on Saturday.
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A developer plans to 84 Rae Avenue after winning its online auction.
The Edithvale property near the beach fetched $963,500.
A developer outbid three homebuyers to win the 697sq m landholding just blocks from the beach — which came with plans and permits for two townhouses — for $963,500.
Ray White Carnegie’s Tom Grieve, who ran the auction from his garage, said 84 Rae Avenue sold without any of the bidders setting foot in it. A virtual 3D tour and photos were the only options due to a citywide ban on physical homes inspections being extended t
o at least October 26.
“We put it on the internet at the start of September, hoping we’d get released from (stage four lockdown) on September 14 — in hindsight, that was somewhat optimistic,” he said.
“But we figured, it’s a house, it’s got plans and permits, it’s going to attract interest without inspections. So let’s just leave it there and do the auction.”
Mr Grieve said the vendor also supplied a building inspection to the potential buyers, for a fee, to put their minds at ease.
It turned out an inspection wasn’t too important to the buyer — he planned to demolish the dated three-bedroom house the 70-something vendor had called home for 25 years, and replace it with townhouses.
But Mr Grieve said for most buyers, it was a crucial element of the selling process. He said he had “more than 20 individual buyer inspections booked” across three to four properties for the day physical inspections were due to resume.
“That whole first week back, I’m completely booked,” he said.
Victoria’s peak real estate body is campaigning for one-on-one home inspections to be allowed to resume as part of the next step on the government’s road map to reopening, due to begin from September 28.
The quirky 129 Dorset Road, Croydon attracted eight offers before its sale.
The 1980s build fetched $732,000.
Meanwhile, a Croydon house buyers were lining up to inspect sold before any of them got the chance.
The retro house at 129 Dorset Road sold sight-unseen for $732,000 — above the $660,000-$715,000 quoted range — after Hocking Stuart Ringwood selling agent Travis Milton received a whopping eight offers.
“I had more people interested, but they said they needed to see it in person,” Mr Milton said.
“While it was sensational to get a sale done, there was always going to be that portion of the market who wouldn’t (buy sight-unseen).”
The sale to first-home buyers from the Maroondah area came after the property racked up more than 20,000 views on realestate.com.au, with the 1986 build’s price point and striking design by architect Hank Romyn the major drawcards.
Buyers from Clifton Hill snapped up 22 Coburn Avenue, McCrae without setting foot in it.
22 Coburn Avenue was just 300m from the beach and 18 months old.
Clifton Hill-based buyers also snapped up a contemporary McCrae house without viewing it in person, for an undisclosed sum understood to have surpassed $1.7m.
Belle Rosebud-Dromana director Grant McConnell said the purchasers didn’t have the luxury of waiting until inspections resumed in a month’s time, as they’d already sold their own home.
“That’s where you feel sorry for people, when they’ve sold and they can’t buy anything unless they want to take the punt,” he said.
He said the buyers viewed the 22 Coburn Avenue home — which was only 300m from the beach and 18 months old — via a video walk-through filmed before stage four restrictions kicked in.
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