An overseas buyer has secured a prime piece of land in O'Connor for their impending return to Australia, paying $1.4 million for a three-bedroom house at auction.
The house at 17 Caladenia Street - while rundown and in need of some maintenance - sits on a 754-square metre block with ample front and backyard space.
Built in the 1950s, the previously government-owned house includes a spacious kitchen with a separate dining area, a living space, one bathroom and an internal laundry.
Two bidders registered for the auction on Saturday, which was well attended by neighbours, according to selling agent Steve Lowe of Agent Team Canberra.
"There were definitely some conditional interested parties, so they were hoping that it was going to be passed in because they would have liked to have placed offers post-auction," he said.
But the auction kicked off at $950,000 and sold under the hammer for $1.4 million to an overseas buyer who plans to move back to Australia.
"They've been looking at the Canberra market for quite some time and they've been unsuccessful with a few other [properties] and so he flew over specifically to have a look at this one and come to the auction on Saturday," Mr Lowe said.
"We also do the renovations for our clients so we're about to paint and carpet it and then we'll rent it out for him for six months while he gets [development application] approval to do an extension on it and a renovation."
Mr Lowe said ex-government homes aren't for everyone but present a good opportunity to get into the market.
"That doesn't appeal to every single buyer but it does appeal to the buyers that are happy to roll up the sleeves and get some work done," he said.
The O'Connor house was one of 125 ACT homes taken to auction in the week to Sunday. CoreLogic's preliminary reporting shows a 71.1 per cent clearance rate with 37 homes sold at auction, 24 sold prior and three sold after auction.
Seven properties were withdrawn from auction and another 19 were passed in.
Mr Lowe said Canberra's property market was returning to "normal", pre-pandemic conditions.
"For the last two years it was an absolute frenzy and then because it lasted for so long, it started to feel like normal," he said.
"Now we are literally in a normal market - it's not in favour of the buyer or the seller, it's a normal market. It just feels slow because we've been used to two years of craziness.
"I'm not expecting a huge amount of capital growth over next couple of years, but property prices will continue to tick forward as international migration starts to come back online."
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