Lynden Street Camberwell Auction Review

This week’s mission was to secure a knock down and build property located at 18 Lynden St, Camberwell. The search process had taken us a few months as we tried to buy the right property at or below market price.

During my time with my clients there were numerous occasions where I had to talk them out of the property they liked upon inspection, much to their disappointment. You see when we conduct our comparable sales analysis the price determined is based on recent property sales surrounding the property and or recent sales in the street.

We review the property and the surrounding area to see whether the money our clients are spending is justified. We walk around and even drive around of the area, speak with our local area agent for another opinion on price and speak to locals where we can to ensure we get it right, we are thorough!

Image Source: fletchers.net.au/ 18 Lynden St, Camberwell

And so it was, we arrived at 18 Lynden St ready to take on another auction process armed with all the facts. Our clients, Tim and Annaliza having already missed out on properties a couple of times were starting to suffer property fatigue. A common symptom of the emotional roller-coaster one can go through when searching for their dream home. My job was to remove any emotion, ensure we had conducted all our due diligence and were buying at or below our expected selling range.

The property was quoted at $1.4mil but we knew that, not only would the vendor’s reserve price be much higher but so too would be the final price. The last sale in the street sold for $1.85mil for a property slightly larger in land size but on the lower side of the street. Based on our calculations, this sale translated to a cost of $2,677 per square meter, which meant our buying range was between $1.7-$1.8mil.

The auction began, auctioneer Tim Heavyside was taking his time with the preamble selling the location and the features of the house or should I say the block and location. Many of the homes in the area had been knocked down and had new builds. Our client was proposing to undertake the same action if successful.

Calling for an opening bid there was a lingering silence until I thought it was time to kick proceedings along and start low at $1.4mil, the quote price.

The bidding took off between four parties, us included, but this time we sat out until the property was on the market and momentum slowed.

Then it was a cat and mouse game from $1.65mil reserve price trying to shake off the other bidder with all tactics at my disposal.

I upped the tempo and increments while bidding, then slowed the whole auction down by changing the tempo and even lowered the bidding increments to $1,000 at one point. Within seconds I stepped up the bidding in $10,000’s and before I knew it, had jumped over the $1.7mil mark, then I stopped bidding and to the crowd seemed like we had run out of money. The auctioneer asking me whether I needed to make a phone call to my buyer.

No, in fact this was part of my strategy to control the auction and rattle the buyer and keep the auctioneer guessing. We were relentless, with every new bid our counterpart made we immediately returned fire with another bid to put the pressure back on them. Finally, the property was knocked down to us at $1.758, saving the client $42,000 and making it one of the best buys for the area and street.

Images source: fletchers.net.au