More Brisbane homes selling before Auction

SIGNS of buyer fatigue are starting to emerge in the Brisbane housing market with evidence of more homes selling before making it to auction.

Despite the city’s auction clearance rate remaining above 70 per cent during March, auctioneers are reporting fewer active bidders and a different approach from buyers tired of missing out all the time.

With stock levels still historically low, homehunters are getting more assertive with pre-auction offers in the hope of securing a home quickly and avoiding public competition.

Apollo Auctions director Justin Nickerson said there had been a notable increase in the number of homes selling before auction during March, which spoke to an increasingly risk-averse approach from agents and vendors alike. Mr Nickerson said the number of active bidders had fallen substantially, with only “the premium buyers acting assertively in their efforts to transact”.

Just this week in Bulimba, a Hampton-style rebuild lasted barely four days on the market before selling to a local couple at the first inspection.

Marketing agent Robyn Hoare of Ray White Bulimba said the offer was made within an hour and the home sold for $3.2m. It had been scheduled to go to auction on April 9.

“When you get a standout offer like that you just take it because an auction can’t bridge that sort of gap,” Mrs Hoare said. She said the vendor expectations had been in the late $2m. “I think there’s buyer fatigue,” Mrs Hoare said.

“People are so tired of doing their due diligence for each auction and competing with 10 to 15 registered bidders when there’s only one winner.

“But by putting an offer in prior to auction, it’s got to be a showstopper to stop an auction – and people are doing that.”

In Teneriffe, Heath Williams from Place Estate Agents has just sold a tiny cottage on a 300sq m block for $2.5m prior to the home going under the hammer.

The property at 11 Abercrombie Street (pictured) sold to local architect Shaun Lockyer ahead of its scheduled auction on April 6. “It’s got a house on it, but it also had a DA on it to remove the house,” Mr Williams said.

“Everyone was buying it for the land value. You had to have someone who was prepared to build a house on it.”

Triple rugby code star Karmichael Hunt has also sold his family home on Brisbane’s northside after being made an offer he couldn’t refuse ahead of this weekend’s scheduled auction.

Ray White Ascot sales agent Leigh Kortlang sold the ­Hendra home ahead of Saturday’s scheduled action for $3.25m to a Sydney buyer.

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