Record $276,000 paid for Brighton Beach bathing box
The bathing box 6 on Brighton's Dendy Street Beach sold at weekend auction at a record $276,000.
The beach box is located near the Brighton Lifesaving Club, which reasonated with buyers.
The selling agent John Clarkson of hockingstuart marketed the very blue and yellow bathing box, with $150,000 plus expectations.
"It was a stunning result," he told Property Observer.
Last year, he had sold a new Brighton bathing box, 57a, for $215,000 having had a lengthy history being the first to auction one in 1999, for $58,000.
It was his 16th sale of one of the bathing boxes that existed in Brighton as far back as 1862. There were five bidders at yesterday's auction.
The previous highest known price for a Brighton bathing box was set in 2011 at $260,000, brand new, infill box which was bigger than normal. The rising prices come despite new infill bathing boxes being built on an ongoing timetable by the local council, mostly at the other end of the beach.
Although the bathing boxes of Brighton are iconic postcard imagery for Melbourne tourism, there are dearer bathing boxes elsewhere in Victoria.
In Portsea, the record for what they call boat shed dates back to 2011 when $585,000 was paid.
At an Australia Day auction this year, one sold for $553,000.
Some bathing box sales are done privately with the price kept under wraps.
The weekend result was amid the Brighton sales list which the REIV had as ranging from a $715,000 apartment to a $1,905,000 house.
