"Owner wasn’t there, buyer wasn’t there!": Chapel Hill house sells for $880,000 in bizarre Brisbane auction

Brisbane’s auction market continued its strong streak this weekend, with several successful sales across the city. There were 76 auctions in total, with a reported clearance rate of 44 per cent.

The gorgeous timber house at 19 Nankour Street, Chapel Hill, in Brisbane’s west, sold under the hammer for $880,000. About 35 people watched as two registered bidders fought it out for the property in an unusual auction.

“Owner wasn’t there, buyer wasn’t there,” said selling agent Vern Gilbert, of Plum Property. “The buyer had a buyer’s agent, and the owner said to the auctioneer ‘you just sign the contract’.”

But the story gets more unusual, proving truth is often stranger than fiction.

“I left the main door unlocked, because [the buyers] were so excited and they wanted to come have a look once again at what they’d purchased,” Gilbert said. “I just thought, out of good faith, I’ll leave the door unlocked, they can pop through, walk around, and then pull the door.”

At that point, the vendor called Gilbert to say she was coming to look at another separate house he had listed, but that she needed to pop into the house she had just sold to pick up some flowers.

“She pops over to her house that she’d sold on the way to her new house in Taringa, and she saw these people still walking through the house, who were the current buyers who had just purchased it,” Gilbert said. “They had a good chat and a laugh.”

The buyers were a young couple with three children, while the vendor was a professional couple that had recently moved to Taringa.

Meanwhile, in the inner-city suburb of Bardon, the three-bedroom, one-bathroom house at 8 Bee Street was sold at auction. Set on a spacious 913-square-metre block, the property features an elevated double allotment, a pool and an open-plan design. The successful bidder walked away with the home for $1,396,000.

Elsewhere, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 463 square metres across the road from the Brisbane River at 75 Orleigh Street, West End, sold at a well-attended auction. About 70 people gathered to watch five registered bidders duke it out.

Bidding opened at $1 million, and quickly rose as the two active bidders tried to claim on the house. After 15 minutes, the hammer dropped and the house was sold for $1,175,000.

Selling agent Jessica Vine, of Vine Property Agents, said the home presented a great deal of potential for buyers.

“It’s all about the potential value with this property, and the position it was across the road from the river,” she said.

“There was a lot of hesitation because of the amount of work that this house required. The owner [has] had it for 60 years, but not much has been done to it in that time, so many of the buyers were keeping their cards close to them or giving any price feedback.”

Despite this, Vine said the outcome was strong and both parties were satisfied with the results. The buyers were a young couple with history in the area.

“They used to live in West End, and then they moved out, and they’ve come back,” Vine said. “They’re buying it because they want to renovate it and live there with their family.

“The amount of interest we had from even young families, too, that was very encouraging. It truly did appeal to another family that wanted to start off in that location.”

On the other side of the city, the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on 639 square metres at 40 Koola Street, Wishart, was sold under the hammer for $868,888. Eight registered bidders battled it out in front of 70 people.

Bidding opened at $650,000, then climbed its way up over about 20 minutes to the final sale price. The buyers were a young family.

“The vendors had been in the house for 30 years, and [are] now in their late 60s,” selling agent Karl Gillespie, of LJ Hooker Sunnybank Hills, said. “Very emotional and lots of crying. [They’re] downsizing to a lowset, still in Wishart.”