28 August 2019

Ray White super auction night sets stage for exciting spring

| John Thistleton
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A packed room at Old Parliament House for the Ray White Canberra Winter auction action, with fast and furious bidding. Photos: Supplied.

Becoming a potent, pre-spring event, the Ray White Winter Warmer auction evening on Thursday night, August 22, has charged the ACT property market with optimism, achieving $11.3 million in sales in one intense evening at Old Parliament House, Canberra.

With gun auctioneers, Canberra’s Alec Brown and Jason Andrew from Ray White NSW operating one after another, bidding jumped to healthy levels as 18 of the 27 residential properties on offer sold under the hammer. This delivered a 67 per cent clearance rate, a nudge higher than what the market is achieving across the board.

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Bidding jumped to healthy levels as 18 of the 27 residential properties on offer sold under the hammer.

Auctioneers Jason Andrew (left) and Alec Brown (right).

On a high in the aftermath of the sales success, Alec says as far as an in-room auction event goes, the clearance was a stellar result.

“It is what we had hoped for, it is always nice to be able to deliver on that,” Alec says. “Interestingly, and this shows the strength of the process, already there are about four or five homes from the evening that are under offer and moving forward or right on the cusp of it.”

Alec says the Canberra market now has embraced the auction method of selling. It is a vehicle to present the very best offers in an unconditional nature and putting the owners in a position of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, he says. Over the same time range, private treaty selling simply would not have been able to match the outcome.

Auctioning homes is now proving to be popular in Canberra.

“And quite frankly a lot of the sales on the evening, those prices would not have been achieved had we just gone to the market with the price, the competition drove it forward and beyond.

“I think there is a real appetite and level of comfort in the buyers out there at the moment,” Alec says. “We have had some disruptions and distractions at the start of the year, so it is good to see we can put all those behind us and look forward to what I think is going to be a strong spring campaign.”

Drawn to everything from townhouses in Molonglo to family homes in the Tuggeranong Valley, bidders lined up, looking to beat the spring selling season.

For 90 action-packed minutes, the bidding and counter offers continued climbing. Alec presented two properties, followed by a fresh auctioneer in Jason presenting the next two, maintaining momentum and energy. “And we are delighted that the majority of our loyal clients benefited from a strong result,” Alec says.

One of the hotly contested homes was 5 Teague Street Cook which sold for $750,000.

Of the homes to have created widespread interest, 5 Teague Street, Cook, was exceptional, attracting 16 registered bidders. The three-bedroom home in a quiet, leafy street presented in excellent condition, with Belconnen’s shopping and dining precinct nearby, as well as the Jamison Plaza and Cook shops within walking distance.

Alec says the location happens to be one of the darling suburbs of Belconnen, because anything in that southern belt on the north side of the city always performs extremely well.

“The combination of a well-presented, free-standing town house offering the best in alternative living to a free-standing home; a home immediately ready to go for comfort and entertaining; a top-quality marketing campaign and good agents,” he says.

The winning bid of $750,000 was a close call. Only a few thousand separated the winning bidder after a keen contest. “That was indicative of the whole night, a lot of competitive bidding,” Alec says. The strong depth of buyers was another positive sign to emerge from the evening.

Ray White Canberra chief executive officer Ben Faulks says this is the third year of the firm’s Winter Warmer campaign.

“This is by far our best result to date, and indicative of the confidence that has returned to a post-election Canberra property market,” Ben says.

Ray White Canberra has conducted over 230 auctions over the last six months, more than any other Canberra brand.

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