Clearance Rate On The Rise As Buyers Move In

The Sunday Age

Sunday December 7, 2008

CHRIS VEDELAGO

MAYBE it's the slash in the interest rate or new demand from the increased first home-buyer grant.

Maybe there's some real bargains to be had, or vendors just really need to make a sale before the end of the year. Maybe it's just a fluke.

Whatever the reason, the clearance rate rose to 55 per cent, up 4percentage points after hitting a new low for the year last Saturday.

"The 1 per cent cut in the interest rate is certainly good news but you couldn't say there has been any real direct, positive effect on the auction market," Real Estate Institute of Victoria chief executive Enzo Raimondo said.

"A move of a (few) per cent either way can't really be considered a massive change."

While it is the largest week-on-week increase in the clearance rate since mid-September, it's probably a fair call considering the widely divergent opinions - and individual agency clearance rates - reported from the coalface. Like the difference between selling 56 per cent of properties and 33 per cent.

The REIV said 703 auction results were recorded for the week to Saturday, with 68 unreported.

In Brunswick East, five bidders took the one-bedroom villa unit at 4/15 Holmes Street from an opening of $240,000 to a sale at $310,000. VIP Exclusive Vendor Advocacy's David Melatti said the reserve at the Hocking Stuart auction was set at $285,000.

After-auction negotiations saw 511 Dryburgh Street in North Melbourne sell for $702,000, despite passing in for $62,000 less.

Valuer WBP Property Group said the two-bedroom house received just one vendor bid from Collins Simms at the quoted price of $640,000.

A six-way competition delivered a solid result for 9 McGregor Street in Fairfield, which sold for $805,000 or nearly 9 per cent more than its reserve. Collins Simms had no need for a vendor bid, with the four-bedroom Californian bungalow opening at $500,000 and easily passing its $740,000 reserve.

Pulling genuine buyers also proved no problem for the two-bedroom apartment at 9/25 Rockley Road in South Yarra, which Hocking Stuart quoted at $550,000 to $600,000 and five bidders pushed to a sale under the hammer at $640,000.

"Prices may not have moved much overall in the last year, but the picture can be a lot different when you look at individual properties like this apartment over the long-term," a director of Wakelin Property Advisory, Richard Wakelin, said.

"It has sold four times in just over a decade, going from $229,500 in 1997 to $417,000 in 2001 to $454,000 in 2005 to $640,000 today. That's a fantastic level of capital growth."

The highest price reported to The Sunday Age yesterday was for 6Haverbrack Avenue in Malvern, a seven-bedroom turn-of-the-century house that sold for $5.3 million.

Marshall White declared the property on the market at $4.6million and three bidders participated.

Another top-end property posted the strongest sales result reported yesterday, with 210 Walsh Street in South Yarra selling for $4.36 million or more than 36 per cent above its reserve.

The four-bedroom Victorian attracted five bidders and more than 130 bids. RT Edgar director Greg Herman quoted the property at $3million plus - with the reserve set at $3.2 million - and declared it on the market at $3.5 million.

There are 737 auctions scheduled for next weekend, 37 per cent below 2007. But this is still above the supply level historically seen for the second-last auction weekend of the year.

Call Market Wrap with your auction results, tips and comments on 9604 1188 between 3pm and 6pm on Saturday.