The six-bedroom, six-bathroom home on acreage at 44 Derriwong Road was 35 kilometres from Sydney, and featured fireplaces in multiple living rooms and a swimming pool.
Three buyers registered and bid, and all were upsizing families from the Hills area. However, halfway through the auction a fourth buyer joined the fray and insisted the auctioneer didn’t drop the hammer before he could register.
Bidding opened at its guide of $6.5 million, and bids ranged from $50,000 to $1000 until the price soared past its $6.7 million reserve for $6,861,000.
Guardian Realty Castle Hill selling agent Aaron Godfrey said the buyer was purchasing to help his adult child, who was expanding their family.
Godfrey said the grand facade, beautiful grounds, and proximity to the local private schools were the main drawcards for the country estate.
Loading
Auctioneer Stu Benson said the acreage so close to the city was good value compared to other regions of Sydney.
“When you look at other regions of Sydney that do have similar priced properties, there are still standard sized residential blocks with beautiful homes on them in the upper north shore that sell for the same money,” he said.
The acreage last traded for $3.75 million in 2016, records show.
The vendor has plans to downsize closer to the city.
In Elizabeth Bay, a tiny, 33 square metre studio at 23/7 Greenknowe Avenue that was used as a storage space for the last twenty years sold for $425,000.
The property was guided at $400,000 and the vendors adjusted their $440,000 reserve on the day to meet the market.
Two families with children in their late teens registered to bid. Both had the intention of using the pad as a multipurpose city bolthole for the family, or as an investment property for their child to live in while attending university.
Bidding opened at $400,000 and the buyers used a mix of $5000 and $2000 bids during the auction.
Loading
Ray White’s Renee Cross said her agency had arranged for the former storage space to be cleaned out ahead of auction.
“You couldn’t open the door. It was just packed to the rafters, from ground to the ceiling full of stuff,” Cross said.
“We took all the items out. Because no one had lived there for so many years. We replaced the toilet, we painted, we ripped the really old carpet up.”
Cross said it is a well-maintained building which had tidy common areas and good light.
The buyers were from Dubbo and the vendors were three executors of a deceased estate.
PRD’s chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo said Sydney’s clearance rate of 62.8 per cent was low.
“Anything under sixty-five [per cent] is low for Sydney,” she said.
Mardiasmo said buyers are getting pickier and average days on market were increasing.
“We have seen some auctions that are delayed by two to three weeks … We are definitely seeing an increasing number of that,” she said.
“The cash rate has been held stable for quite a while, there’s no indication that it will be going down or up anytime soon … so in terms of that urgency, it’s just not there at the moment.”