Young couple beat investors to nab entry-level Hawthorn cottage for $1.43 million

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In Hawthorn and the surrounds, small, mostly original Victorian terraces rarely come onto the market.

So when a two-bedroom home at 135 Victoria Road, Hawthorn East did, it proved very popular, with more than 150 groups coming through the doors during the auction campaign.

Despite the huge amount of interest, it came down to three bidders on the day, with a young couple going up against two investors for the property.

The auction kicked off with a bid from a buyer’s agent at $1.25 million, within the $1.2 million to $1.3 million price range.

Less than 10 minutes later, the house sold to the young couple whose parents bid $1.43 million on their behalf, about $200,000 above reserve.

As the hammer fell the young couple, surrounded by family, embraced and cheered. They upsized from their first home, an apartment.

“[The bidding was] very fast, it was a dream. Good strong bidding,” said selling agent and auctioneer Andrew Macmillian. 

He noted the buyers were going to move in straight away and renovate over time. 

“You [could] spend a lot of money on this. You could spend half a million to a million on this,” Mr Macmillian said.

Colleague Clayton Smith said the three registered bidders all saw the same potential in the property.

“This could be turned into a four-bed, two-bathroom. Maybe a garage at the back with a studio above to really squeeze as much out of the almost 300 square metres as you can,” he said.

The sale price was well under the Hawthorn East suburb median of $2.32 million. “Really, any suburbs under the median is your deepest pool of buyers,” Mr Smith said. “It’s still a really big number but that’s what you pay now, to get into the market.”

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It was one of 726 scheduled auctions across Melbourne on Saturday. By evening Domain Group had recorded a clearance rate of 62 per cent. 

Earlier, Mr Smith sold a fixer-upper in Richmond for nearly $300,000 above reserve.

The dated home at 77 Bendigo Street had been in the one family for 44 years, and was in need of a lot of work.

“It’s a totally unrenovated free-standing double block,” Mr Smith said. Luckily, the buyer had the know-how to give the home a facelift.

“It was bought by a family … an architect, so they’ll do a big renovation and extend,” he said. “It’ll be a stunning property once it’s done.”

The house had a price guide of $1.5 million to $1.6 million and a reserve of $1.53 million.

The architect buyer paid $1.81 million.

Later  in Brunswick East a three-bedroom house went under the hammer, with a four bidders vying for the keys.

The home at 8 Aintree Street sold for $1,164,000 to a buyer from Fitzroy North, looking to upgrade to a home with more space and land.

Nelson Alexander‘s Peter Stephens said the buyer was a part of a phenomenon he called the “north-west drift”: buyers heading towards Brunswick in search of cheap real estate.

“If they want to push for a bit more land they have to go to the next boundary out,” he said. “We do find people really just move one or two postcodes.” 

The three-bedroom home had sparked strong competition because of its charm. “It’s quite a quirky house, with a good character. I think people responded well to the character to the place,” Mr Stephens said.