Super Saturday success, but cracks emerge in outer Sydney

Super Saturday success, but cracks emerge in outer Sydney
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

Sydney passed its super Saturday auction test with flying colours, although there were some hits and misses.

Despite the spike in pre-Easter stock, vendors again secured a 70 percent plus success rate from the bumper near-900 listings.

Prices ranged from $380,000 at Yagoona to $5.71 million for a seven bedroom house at Strathfield.

The two bedroom Yagoona flat had four bidders, with the buyer "in two minds" as to move in or rent it out after a renovation, its Ray White selling agent Paul Chidiac said.

The Auburn Road flat last sold at $130,000 in 1992.

Click to enlarge

Volumes are at around 20 percent less than last autumn, which is helping maintain the strong clearance rates.

Around $500 worth of property sold yesterday, compared to the $750 million on the busier pre-Easter weekend last year when the clearance rate was in the mid-80s.

But even the affordable stock doesn't always sell with a $450,000 top bid unsuccessful in securing a Chipping Norton flat.

Before auction sales included a bullish $4,722,000 pre-auction sale at Castlecrag, secured 10 days ago.

"We had a dutch auction occur, so we took the price on offer," its McGrath selling agent Peter Starr said.

There was a pre-auction $5.1 million result yesterday in Clovelly when well ahead of its April 9 auction, Alexander Phillips at Phillips Pantzer Donnelly secured a sale on near-oceanfront Eastbourne Avenue.

However Killara's top offering - an art deco 1930s Killara home with $5.5 million hopes - was pulled from auction, despite the fillip in the suburb mid-week with an upper north shore $12 million record sale.

It was last on offer 29 years ago.

Mosman was the busiest auction suburb, with around 20 offerings in the pre-Easter countdown, according to CoreLogic RP Data.

The burden triggered one Mosman auction to have no registered bidders.

At Rossmore there were 16 registered parties, but only three competed when a five ha two house property sold for $4.51 million through United Acreage Property Marketing.

Auctioneer Damien Cooley reported an 80 percent plus success rate, as the average number of registered bidders sat at four and rising.

Damien Cooley at Cooley Auctions said the bidding numbers were up on the three during December, but still below the five in early last year.

Cremorne, which was recently pinpointed in realestate.com.au’s top sellers’ unit market report, secured the sale of two of its three offerings. 

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

Editor's Picks