Brisbane auctions: Sydney bid delivers $1.21m deal in Wooloowin; pulses rise in $1.12m Sandgate sale

Sydney buyers dominated one of Brisbane’s top auction sales on Saturday, desperate to purchase a family home in Wooloowin before the imminent birth of twins.

The couple beat stiff competition from eight registered bidders including three interstaters, to clinch the four-bedroom, renovated Queenslander for $1.21 million.

The sale of the Hamptons-style house on 486 square metres in front of a crowd of about 100 people, was Brisbane’s second highest reported auction result, according to Domain Group data.

A four-week campaign had drawn more than 90 buyers’ groups including strong interest from southerners because “that price point is where everyone is right now, $800,000, $900,000 to $1.1 million to $1.2 million”, says Jamie Charman of Ray White Albion.

“That is where you see the real action for Brisbane. It represents very good value for money for ‘multinational’ professional family groups,” Mr Charman says.

The landscaped property with a pool is eight kilometres northeast of the CBD.

Bidding started at $850,000 and “went pretty quickly” to $1.185 million, at which point private negotiations began between its two highest bidders.

“We resumed the auction at $1.2 million with the Sydney buyer the highest bidder but then, at the very end, he offered a further $10,000 bid to knock out a young couple who I know have been looking for a while,” the agent says.

“[The successful bidders] have two children and are about to have twins; actually the wife stayed in Sydney this week and didn’t actually realise her husband was bidding and that he had bought it.

“She is heavily pregnant so there was a real urgency around buying as they have been looking for about four months and didn’t want to be looking too much longer. They are keen to get things tied up before the births.”

A vendor’s pulse spiked, 16 kilometres north of Brisbane on Saturday, when bidding for a renovated four-bedroom home in Sandgate crept up by $270,000 from $850,000.

Five parties had registered; three raised their paddles, says agent Jacqui McKeering of Jim McKeering Real Estate.

“It was slow, opening at $750,000, then $50,000 jumps to $850,000 before quickly becoming these very small bids of $10,000 and $5000, which made the vendor very anxious, thinking it was going too slow (to get to our researched expected price range),” the agent says.

“But it did get there, maybe 15 minutes’ later, and exhausted at $1.1 million. We negotiated with the highest bidder who was adamant that was his final bid.

“We returned to the auction in front of about 100 people packed inside the vendor’s house because of the rain, announced it would be sold and then, in a final twist, the rival bidder offered another $20,000 and it was sold to him for $1.12 million,” Ms McKeering says. “The vendor was very, very overwhelmed.”

Closer to town, in West End, a “textbook auction” returned the city’s highest auction sale figure for Saturday – and at a much calmer pace.

The historically significant four-bedroom colonial house on a 607-square-metre block “at the top of the hill”, started at “a cheeky” $1 million, Angus Commins of Space Property South Brisbane says.

The price grew “pretty quickly” by $100,000 and $50,000 increments to $1.35 million before slowing to $25,000 and $10,000 bids, he says. It was on the market at $1.5 million.

“The last $53,000 was made up of $1,000 incremental bids by three bidders sparring with each other to arrive at the sale price of $1.553 million … bought by a couple in their late 30s-early 40s,” Mr Commins says.

“It had a lot going for it, one of only four by its builder and architect, all the usual West End attractions, beautifully maintained, a flat block, and when you have all these things, when the moons align, there were no surprises.

“It was a textbook auction.”