11 Irvine Street, Garden Suburb
FAMILIES on the hunt for their forever home turned out in force to bid on a three-bedroom, three-bathroom single-level home in Garden Suburb on Saturday.
The property, on a 1,408 square metre block, sold for $1.36 million and set a new street record in the process.
The previous street record was $1.3 million set in March 2022 for a five-bedroom home on 972 square metres at 15 Irvine Street.
According to CoreLogic, the median house price in Garden Suburb is $901,000.
We spoke with selling agent Brad Wallace from Raine and Horne Newcastle about the auction and the result:
The property: It was a very rare offering, hence the interest we had. It was a big double block with a large land holding of 1,400 square metres. The vendors bought the double block and built their big family home 30 years ago. It was three bedroom but it could easily have been converted to a four-bedroom home. It's all single-level living as well. Most of these big homes are two-storey, but this one is all on one level. It had multiple living areas and a huge four-car garage.
The result: It sold for $1.36 million. It was very hard to put a figure or a guide on the property due to not being able to compare it to many other properties that have sold in the area. It's the sixth highest price for the suburb and the street record for Irvine Street.
How many registered bidders? We had six registered bidders on the day. Even Gavin Reynolds, the auctioneer on the day, said that toward the end of last year, they were averaging 0.9 bidders, which is, really, just one bidder. We had six times that. I think it was the property that drew bidders in more so than people coming back to the market. For a property like this one, supply and demand comes into play. With limited supply of homes like this, that drives up the price and the competition. We had about 50 or 60 people there for the auction - certainly, the whole neighbourhood was out on the day.
What made this property special? The size of the block, the large single-level living and the huge garage/workshop.
Where were the buyers from? They were all local and young families looking to buy their forever home. The lucky buyer was buying it for his family.
How did the auction unfold? The opening bid was $900,000, so it did climb up there and there were around 18 bids in total. We got to a point where we had to negotiate. We had to confirm with the owners if they were happy to sell at that price and they were. Negotiation really had to go down to the wire and we managed to get a really good price.
Was the result a surprise? I was expecting it to go well but with the rising interest rates, I was never certain. It was a great result.
