Canterbury: 28 Victoria Avenue: Passed In $4,025,000 - Bidderman 1. Gerald Delany works a huge crowd for minimal response. Many of his fellow auctioneers experienced the same throughout Boroondara today.

Interesting day in Boroondara today, with a few properties flying out the door with 5 or more bidders and also a number passing in quietly without much crowd interest. Scott Patterson from Jellis Craig thought the market was patchy – yet probably understandable. Scott thought the company’s clearance rate probably dropped back to around 70% today. This was in line with other agencies in Boroondara, we would say.

Of the 25 reported auction results 11 were still reported unsold at 6.00 pm or an on the day clearance rate of 56%. Having said that Glen Iris was still rock solid with 5 from 6 selling at auction and the only miss was a main road property.

A few of the properties that flew -

10 Dookuna Avenue in Camberwell (Mark Fletcher, Fletchers) – 669 m2 – here the house had little or no value (could not even inspect it) and therefore land is worth $1880/m2 in this precinct – 5 bidders.

72 Walpole Street in Kew (Richard Winneke, Jellis Craig) – single level small house  – figure believed to be over $1.7m – 5 bidders.

But there were more that did not fly – 28 Victoria Ave Canterbury, 8 Stanhope Grove Camberwell, 20 Mowbray Street Hawthorn East and 24 Elm Street Hawthorn.

Talking to few agents today and a similar message of the market easing (even just a fraction) kept coming back. Geoff Hall from the Camberwell Noel Jones office  believes that over the last ten days or so a lot of buyers were getting a little concerned with the heat in the market and simply opting out of the process (at least for a short while). James Tostevin (Marshall White, Hawthorn) believes that there are signs that the edge of the market is coming off and expectations of many vendors were too high to meet – unless the property was a good one (ie well positioned and /or having a functional house).  Paul Williamson (Jellis Craig, Glen Iris)  agrees with this also – particularly for properties on busy roads.

With so many auctions on March 27 (around 150 in the next two weeks over $1m – what stock shortage), it could be a good time to buy as there is just so much to choose from and obviously people cannot be in more than one place at once. This was suggested by Tim Picken from Jellis Craig. We would agree here. It certainly will be a very important time to be on the ball and understand property value. Of course a good buying strategy (or two or three or four) will be handy also. Just going back on that point 150 auctions – that is 3 times what is on offer in Bayside over the next fortnight.

In closing for a bit of real WOW go and check out 10  Barton Street Hawthorn. This is listed by Maurice Di Marzio of Jellis Craig and is scheduled to auction at 11am on March 27. Very clever rear extension here and the way the property literally opens up onto Mason Street Reserve is impressive.

Design Smart.