Brighton bathing box market buoyant

It’s been a busy year or so for Brighton’s bathing boxes, with the past 10 sales netting about $2 million. Set on one of the most photographed locales in Australia, Bayside Council sold four for a $900,000 total, while six others have been sold at about $200,000 each.

Last month three of the 85 colourful icons changed hands to other Brighton ratepayers.

There are three now up for sale and the council will auction another two newly built infill boxes in early 2012.

Box 26 (pictured above) currently has a $210,000 asking price through J P Dixon Real Estate.

Box 16 (pictured above) is for sale at $180,000-plus through Hodges.

Box 72 (pictured above) is listed without an asking price through Hodges.

Brighton Bathing Box Association treasurer Bill Meares told The Bayside Leader newspaper he's never known such a spurt. “It is fair to say the infill boxes the council have sold have created extra interest,” Meares suggests.

“Normally bathing box sales mirror the property market, but not this year, they have created their own market and demand.”

Nick Johnstone Real Estate has sold three boxes over the past two months, including box 71 and 73, which were listed through estate agent Chris Carrington.

Estate agent Nick Johnstone says they were very much "a social asset".

“People are seeing them as an alternative to a holiday home,” Johnstone says.

“They are a good family [asset]; everyone knows each other and they hold barbecues and social occasions, and this starts a chain reaction of people wanting one.”

The current average market value of a bathing box has been about $200,000.

Box 40 was been snapped up before its scheduled August auction for $210,000. It had last sold at $170,000 two years ago. It sold through Katie Reid at Nick Johnstone Real Estate.

Bathing boxes existed in Brighton as far back as 1862. The record price for a newly built bathing box was set in June at $260,000.