Strathallan Road Macleod Auction Review

raywhitegreensborough.com Auction at 3/83 Strathallan Road Macleod

We were out and about this weekend in the very small but tightly held suburb of Macleod in Melbourne’s north. Situated about 15 kms from Melbourne’s CBD, Macleod boasts primary and secondary schools, a small village shopping strip and train station. For as long as I have been in real estate this little area has always performed well in terms of capital growth and has been a hot spot for downsizers and first home buyers alike.

So when a three bedroom unit came up for auction at 3/83 Strathallan Road Macleod and was quoted at mid to high 400’s, I thought it was worth looking into.

Photo Source: raywhitegreensborough.com 3/83 Strathallan Road Macleod

The bidding kicked off at the bottom end of the quote range at $450,000 and proceeded in lots of $10,000 all the way to $500,000, at which point one of the buyers amongst the small 30 person crowd asked, “is the property on the market”, to which the agent replied, “not yet madam”.

Now typically, if the market was in freefall, you wouldn’t have 4 bidders bidding up a property before it was even on the market would you? Anyway, the bidding continued in increments of $5,000 and $10,000 bids until two $1,000 bids were taken at $526,000 and $527,000. A new bidder then decided he’d had enough and jumped the bid to $550,000, the opposing bidder bid another $1,000 to $551,000 then the original bidder jumped to $560,000, at which point the property was knocked down to him. Within the crowd, there were a number of first home buyers, investors and onlookers. Despite the crowd being smaller than I expected, there were still four separate bidders on the property, two which pushed the price beyond its $550,000 reserve in the end.

Speaking to other agents around Melbourne, auctions appeared to go well this weekend. Luke Brizzi of Barry Plant Northcote reported a 100% clearance rate for the four auctions put under the hammer. He also reported crowd numbers were down, however this appeared to be attributed more to the type of home being auctioned rather than the case for all properties sold.

Mr Brizi noted that one of the properties sold, 42 Speight Street  (pics shown above and below), smashed the record for Thornbury achieving well above the vendor’s reserve price. In front of a 50 plus strong crowd, three bidders fought it out pushing the price above its quoted range of over $1.6million, finally reaching a massive $1.8million.

No signs of a property collapse in Thornbury this week anyway, phew!