Four Auctions, One Big Saturday

Saturday proved rather thrilling. Team Fetter/Sciola had five auctions scheduled until one sold before on Thursday, leaving us with auctions at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm in Malvern, Malvern East, Glen Iris, and Toorak – all quality family homes in the $3,000,000 – $5,000,000 range.

Earlier in the week we were anticipating a tough day, with at least four of the five likely to pass in. However, as often happens – particularly in a strengthening market like today – interest firmed up in the final one or two days before auction.

Buyers often won’t make the final commitment to bid or not until the eleventh hour, often waiting to see if a better option comes up.

It’s surprising how often we pick up a new buyer the day before or the day of an auction. It’s a good lesson for buyers – you might not have any competition on the Wednesday, and the vendor may be more open to a pre-auction offer, whereas by Saturday you may face strong competition and end up paying substantially more.

Here’s how the day panned out:

11am – 13 Nicholls Street, Malvern: Beneath the shade of the flowering ornamental pear trees, this ‘cover girl’ home, featured in The Local Project and House and Garden magazine, sold under the hammer with two strong bidders. The buyer and her family literally jumping up and down with excitement and tears of joy to a round of applause.

12pm – 8a Central Park Road, Malvern: In the exquisite front yard, designed by Paul Bangay – and spilling out onto the street – a large crowd gathered to watch two families bid it out for this fully renovated 1920s home. The property passed in and sold directly afterwards to a family relocating from Brisbane for their kids’ secondary and tertiary education.

1pm – 14 Aintree Road, Glen Iris: By this stage, the wind and wide street were really testing my voice, but aggressive bidding from three parties helped move things along, with this grand modern home designed by Atlas Architects selling under the hammer to a local downsizer.

2pm – 34a Linlithgow Road, Toorak: Nestled among $20m+ mansions, this charming c1935 period home was snapped up by a young family with strong competition, selling under the hammer after a very drawn-out bidding war in $1,000 and $2,000 increments for the last $50,000, where both buyers had clearly reached their limit but did not want to let go.

Across Melbourne, Jellis Craig achieved an auction success rate of 80% on a high-volume day of 153 auctions. This is very strong.

The market feels like it’s finally back to where it was in the rising markets of 2016/2017 and late 2019. That is, competitive auctions, mostly selling at the higher end of the range or above, but without the crazed FOMO frenzy of the Covid years.

And while the market is vastly improved, it’s not across the board. There are still plenty of homes passing in or sitting on the market – nearly always because they are overpriced.

Prices are up but we are talking a few percent, which means vendors for a typical house in Stonnington are getting an extra $30,000, $50,000 or $100,000 more than 12 months ago, not hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

What was most exhilarating about Saturday for me, Carla, and the team was not so much the results or the prices, but how thrilled, relieved, and happy our vendors were, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from not only our clients, but the buyers, underbidders, and even the neighbours.

Our team, now six of us, have been hustling so hard over the last weeks, months, and years. At times in 2023 and 2024 it felt like our job involved banging our head against the wall (preferably weatherboard and not brick) and then giving our vendors bad news every day until we managed to find a buyer who was incredibly motivated.

Finally, sales are coming more easily, and we get to high five each other once in a while. It’s very refreshing.

Congratulations to Carla who has sold over $27,000,000 of real estate over the last seven days… She is on fire!

If you’re considering a sale this side of Christmas, now is the time to reach out to Carla or me.

There will be a healthy amount of property hitting the market over the next two weeks for auctions on October 18th and ‘Super Saturday’ on the 25th… Spring is here!

Feature Property: 60 McArthur Street, Malvern