First-Home Buyers Purchase Collingwood Apartment for $1,106,000

First home buyers paid $1,106,000 for an architectural apartment in Collingwood at auction on Saturday, on Melbourne’s first auction weekend under new reserve disclosure laws.

The two-bedroom apartment at 304/29 Bedford Street, in the trendy Otter Place development, fetched $26,000 above its $1.08 million reserve after a rapid contest between the first-timer couple and an experienced buyer’s advocate.

With industrial-style concrete ceilings, luxury V-ZUG appliances and a light-filled balcony, the apartment is one of 28 residences in a complex designed by architectural studio Hassell and interior practice DesignOffice for developer Milieu Property. It had a price guide of $1 million to $1.1 million.

Nelson Alexander Fitzroy agent Charlie Barham described the auction, carried out during a break in heavy rain, as “short and sharp”.

The buyer’s advocate opened the bidding for auctioneer Angus McPherson at $1 million, with $10,000 bids hiking the price until it hit about $1.06 million, then dropping to $5000 increments. Bidding soon passed the reserve, and McPherson dropped the hammer in favour of the happy young couple.

Barham said the new owners live locally and were excited to buy in the area.

Otter Place was finished in 2024, just off vibrant Smith Street – named the world’s coolest street by Time Out magazine in 2021.

“Milieu has built a really strong reputation in the inner north, and when one of their apartments comes to market, which they rarely do, there’s a good level of confidence before buyers even walk through the door,” he says.

Barham said this week’s interest rate rise appeared to have had no bearing on the result.

“I think the auction would suggest that people were expecting it and had factored it in,” he said.

Under legislation starting on October 1, Victorian listings must advertise a property’s reserve price at least seven days before an auction or fixed-date sale.

Agents and their vendors have a two-week transition period, so homes going under the hammer across Melbourne at the weekend were split between published reserves and the previous price-guide format.

The price a property sells for will also be required to be made public within seven days of the sale, from October 1.

The property was one of 714 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne this week. By evening, Domain recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 56 per cent from 506 reported results throughout the week, while 79 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.

In Eltham, a three-bedroom 1970s house on 793 square metres was bought by a young family for $102,000 above the advertised $850,000 reserve.

Competition from six bidders – all young, and mostly first- and second-home buyers – drove the sale price of 5 Davies Drive to $952,000.

Jellis Craig Eltham agent Tom Kurtschenko said bidding started at $800,000 and, rolling in $10,000 increments, quickly passed the reserve.

“It was pretty aggressive bidding most of the way through,” Kurtschenko said.

The living room has a vaulted ceiling which he said prospective buyers had appreciated. The buyers are from Ivanhoe and the underbidders were also a young family.

Kurtschenko said the reserve was published from almost the beginning of the campaign.

“We’ve done it previously on homes, and it always tends to work,” he says. “The buyers who are interested come with the right expectations in mind, so it just cuts a lot of the noise out of the conversation.”

In Gladstone Park, a family upgraded into a three-bedroom brick house with an outdoor entertaining area for $101,000 more than the published reserve. They out-maneuvered three other bidders at auction, including first home buyers, to pay $801,000.

The vendors owned 25 The Circuit for 14 years, initially as a home for their daughter, and then as an investment property.

“It was vacant, and freshened up. They styled it, so they listened to the advice,” Ray White Gladstone Park agent Phillip Mercieca said.

The home had a guide of $670,000 to $700,000, and an advertised reserve of $700,000. Intense interest during the campaign convinced Mercieca to bring the auction forward by a week.

“A full home and a full block, sub-$800,000, is great value in the area,” he said.

The auction opened with a $680,000 bid and reached the reserve in three bids. Bidding progressed in $5000 and $10,000 steps until the mid-$700,000 mark, when the four contenders slugged it out in tense $500 and $1000 bids until the end.

Mercieca said scarcity of homes for sale meant bidders are competing for what little is available.

“It was only a short campaign, there was just nothing else available online,” he said.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.