So today I/we got out and about on the auction reports – we had no financial interest in any of the homes we reported on – they were random choices.

13 auctions we covered with a clearance of less then 50% and a Bidderman of exactly 1 – both stats show a significantly falling market.

Specifically I covered Four auctions. Four quite different homes.

And, I thought, four very useful messages from the market.

Grove Road, Hawthorn

I knew this home.

In fact, I was at its auction in 2018, acting for a buyer.

I loved it then.

I loved it now.

Good position. Great condition. A quality property.

Back in 2018?

We got smashed.

A hot auction. Plenty happening. It sold for $4.65 million.

Today, eight years later, the opening vendor bid was $4.9 million.

And then…

Nothing.

No bidder.

No momentum.

No auction.

Same very good home.

2018: $4.65 million.

2026: $4.9 million vendor bid. No interest.

Think about that for a moment.

The owners appear to be looking, roughly, to get their purchase price and costs back after eight years. And the market was not remotely interested at that level.

That’s the market telling you price.

Berry Street, East Melbourne

Next stop was Berry Street.

Again, a good property.

Great bones. Great width. Front and rear car access. Terrific East Melbourne position — a drop-kick from the MCG.

But very different from Grove Road…

It needs a major renovation.

And right now that matters enormously.

Building costs. Time. Councils. Neighbours. Holding costs.

Renovating a substantial Melbourne home today can be a financial, emotional and probably mental nightmare.

This one was also a mortgagee auction. In simple terms: somebody (bank) needs it sold.

The quoted range had been towards $5.5 million.

Despite this the crowd actually felt reasonably alive at the start of the auction.

I thought: *Geez, maybe I’ve got this wrong.*

Then auctioneer Mark Wridgway invited an opening bid.

$4.2 million.

Hold on.

Quoted towards $5.5 million.

Opening invited at $4.2 million.

Still nothing.

Eventually somebody called $4.1 million

Accepted.

That brought another bidder in and they competed to $4.275 million.

Passed in.

Then sold afterwards for $4.4 million.

Now, some people might look at that and say that’s a poor result.

I don’t.

I think that was good agent  (Sarah Case) work.

The market wasn’t where the seller wanted it to be.

So the agent adjusted.

They created competition. They demonstrated where the buyers actually were. And ultimately they got the property sold.

That’s the job.

Not defending yesterday’s price.  Finding today’s price.

Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

Then Brunswick Street.

Another terrace.

Not as much work as Berry Street. Reasonable property. Asking around $4 million.

Ric Daniel ran what I thought was a good auction.

But no interest.

Passed in.

They’re now looking towards $4 million.

And this is something we’ve been seeing for some time.

Properties requiring work — particularly terraces — can be difficult.

Not necessarily because they’re bad properties.

But because buyers are adding up what comes next.

Purchase price.

Stamp duty.

Renovation.

Time.

Risk.

Headache.

And unless it’s seen as a bargain eg Berry St then the answer is almost all the time:

No thanks.

Croydon Road, Surrey Hills

Finally, Croydon Road.

This one wasn’t particularly attractive to me.

Double-fronted. South-facing rear. Sloping land. Internal steps. Rooms weren’t especially large. No ensuite. Car access wasn’t obvious to me – eg crossover??.

Yes perfectly liveable.

Just not a home I expected people to fight over.

The quote was up to around $2.2 million.

My gut feel?

They’d struggle.

And initially, they did.

The auctioneer Davy Sy after keeping us waiting a bit asked for a start.

$1.8 million came quickly – well done I thought.

Then vendor bid. Courageous I thought.

Another bid from same bidder – ok well done agents Cherie Sun, well done Ellie Gong -knew their buyers!!.

Inside – half time

Back outside.

It looked difficult.

But the auctioneer kept working.

Kept the pace going.

Kept talking to the crowd.

Kept asking.

Kept making it feel like an auction.

Then something changed.

A second bidder.

Then a third.

Small increments — $1,000, $5,000 — but they had competition.

At $1.985 million, the property was asked is it and declared on the market.

Very, very smart move.

And that changed things again.

The bidders knew somebody was buying the property.

They competed.

And eventually:

$2.105 million. Sold.

A bloody good result, I thought.

And a really good piece of selling.

The seller didn’t get stuck on the number they originally wanted.

The agent didn’t give up because the opening wasn’t pretty.

Everyone adjusted to reality.

This created competition.

This put the property on the market.

This got a better result AND this got it sold.

So what did today tell me?

Actually nothing new. You need to get values right buying or selling AND they are very, very different from 10 /5 /2 years ago. Very!

That doesn’t mean there aren’t buyers.

There are – if the agent is doing his or her job well and the sellers are listening.

We saw genuine competition today.

But buyers don’t appear terribly interested in helping sellers recover what they paid, what they spent, or what they hoped their property would now be worth.

They couldn’t care less – they are mostly in a NEW paradigm.

They are looking at this property, today, at this price.

And for buyers?

Don’t mistake a quiet market for a market where you never have to compete.

If a good property is priced appropriately and another genuine buyer wants it, you still need to compete.

ALSO

If the seller wants to sell and there is nobody else there, understand what that means.

Because in this market, perhaps more than we’ve seen for a long time, knowing the true value isn’t an interesting discussion.

It is the deal.