Northumberland St, Collingwood Auction Review

This week the Street Advocate team travelled out to 5b/21 Northumberland St, Collingwood  to view the auction of a cosy 2 bedroom apartment with immense character in a converted warehouse of what was once The Victorian Distillery.

This was not your typical everyday style apartment with an extreme open-plan layout and features remiss of it’s circa 1860 heritage and was well represented in the arts/fashion quarter of Collingwood.

Key features:

• Original warehouse features throughout with floor to ceiling sized windows
• 4 principal rooms with polished floorboards, GDH, storage room, separate laundry & bathroom
• Fully appointed kitchen with gas cooking and dishwasher
• Private entry / alfresco area with classic scissor gate entrance
• Separate car space on title
• Zoned: Commercial 2

As expected, the interest in the property was tremendous with a crowd of approximately 60 – 70. The auctioneer,Simon Shrimpton from Jellis Craig Clifton Hill positioned himself confidently in front of the property and spruiked to the onlookers the fifty plus inspections brought about by the campaign.

Quoted between $750,000 to $800,00 an opening bid of $700,000 began proceedings and Mr Shrimpton began the auction dance taking rises of $20,000 increments from another interested bidder at $720,000. The price was immediately raised by the auctioneer to $750,000 with what was declared to be his first and last vendor bid which I thought to be a clever tactic to gain the bidders trust.

In retrospect trust wasn’t necessary with a third down-sizer entering the bidding battle at $10,000 increments taking the price all the way to $850,000 where the property was officially declared to be on the market.

At $900,000, the bidding stalled and it looked to be the prize of the second bidder before a fourth down-sizer cheekily entered at $901,000.
The bidding war continued between the second and fourth bidder in a series of stalls and knock-out bids with the property eventually falling to the second bidder at a staggering $941,000.

With the medium house price for a two bedroom unit in Collingwood being $636,000 (Source: Realestate.com.au), it is clear that this properties presentation, location and eclectic charm and eventually its uniqueness helped it helped achieve this great result.

You may suggest that the property sold for a premium, however, being the first time the property has been offered since it’s conversion from a warehouse in 1997, I would say that it was received at market price even if it did far exceed the vendors expectations. Four bidders fighting over the property demonstrated how sought after it was and perhaps reflected its scarcity and uniqueness for the area.

Images Source: jelliscraig.com.au/CliftonHill