Covering Toorak, Malvern, Armadale, South Yarra, Caulfield and Elsternwick $1m+ homes

Malvern East: 55 Ardrie Road. Lovely day for a quiet auction. Trouble was 120 people showed up with six bidders and it sold for $1.21 million against an $850,000+ quote. Tim Derham of Abercrombys was directing traffic.

East: 55 Ardrie Road. Lovely day for a quiet auction. Trouble was 120 people showed up with six bidders and it sold for $1.21 million against an $850,000+ quote. Tim Derham of Abercrombys was directing traffic.

Andrew McCann of says we are now very close to 2007 prices.

raw_BiddermanjpgApartments
Sam Wilkinson and Tim Blackett of got 2-4 Lansell Road away pre-auction. It was a $2 million-plus sale but the apartment market at the really does appear to be non-existent right now. Unless this offer was considered a stand out, it was sold because they felt the auction may have proved embarrassing. Chastleton in Toorak, asking $4 million and one of the best apartments we have seen this year, still hasn’t attracted a suitor, despite Peter Kudelka’s best efforts. We may look stupid some time soon, but we really don’t think there is a $2 million-plus apartment low rise market (now ), of course there will be one in the future. Also with Asian buyers now being able to purchase , we think a driving force in high-end high-rise may have also moved on.

Big Sales
1 Horsburgh Grove Armadale: As a postscript to last week’s auction, during this week, the sellers took the antidote to “40Lambethitis” and accepted the top bidders’ very good offer of $2.3 million. Eventually, most people come to their senses. Well done to James Redfern of for a good result.

55 Ardrie : The Ardrie Park area is a precinct to watch. We remember buying a little single-fronted in Repton Road (around the corner) post-auction for $600,000 only a few years ago. Today, we saw five bidders fight it out to more than $1.2 million for a double-fronted home that needed a big reno. But the buyers were smart. North-facing rear, good feel to home, across the road is an almost completed French Provincial (worth north of $2.5 million?), the tram is 100 metres away and access to the fantastic Ardrie Park just across the road. Speaking of roads, what a beautiful olde English type street Ardrie is. Don’t worry about the price, this was a great buy – well done to whoever it was. Tim and Michael Derham of Abercrombys managed the sale and managed it well – except the usual courageous quote. We required two quick visits on the same day and they accommodated at short notice – good agent work. 55 Ardrie confirms to us the young renovator yuppie market has returned and is now a force to be reckoned with.

68a Clendon Toorak: Nicolas Day home. Auction report: “A huge crowd of 150 people turned up to this auction but just one bidder was prepared to play. The bidder opened proceedings with a $5.6 million bid but, with no further bids eventuating, the property was passed in.” This auction was to tell us if the jury is still out on $5 million-plus homes. It still is out.

Stock levels are the issue in Stonnington.

Jeremy Fox, director of , says he has almost nothing in his forward auction book for the 8th, 15th and 22nd of August weekends. He says the Top End $5 million-plus market is still not moving like other markets but there are both buyers and sellers, so it’s not interest but price discrepancies that are holding things up. He re-emphasised buyer frustrations: do you go now or wait and is waiting going to mean lower prices? Jeremy says no, because there is little stock coming on.

Andrew McCann, director of Bennison Mackinnon says there is no pressure for sellers to sell and August auctions are looking very quiet. He says sellers are still watching the market. Finally he doesn’t see Spring homes flooding the market and dropping prices and, even if there is an increase in stock, there is enough pent-up buyer demand to soak up increased stock levels without a noticeable price drop.

Next auction weekend seems to be a renovators auction week.

We think the renovators and developers are coming back. Here are two of a number of sales that will tell us one way or the other. See our ratings on:

33 Murray St – Guy St Leger of Biggin and Scott – great area – love the Flying Duck pub.

25 Central Park Road Malvern East – Andrew James of Hocking Stuart – how much will the $4 million renovated version across the road affect things?

Pricing

Wormy’s not seeing a lot of action in the Stonnington area, so we need to be careful predicting any medium-term trends but pricing action to date seems upwards.

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