July 4, 2026 — 1:45pm
An updated ’70s retro villa unit in Footscray with original fittings passed in without a bid at auction on Saturday, despite having five registered bidders.
Sitting on 210 square metres of land, the two-bedroom unit at 6/63 Everard Street, in Melbourne’s inner west, features freshly painted walls and new carpets interspersed with retro accents such as an internal brick wall and textured ceilings. It had a price guide of $650,000 to $710,000.
The property was one of 577 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne this week. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 54 per cent from 383 reported results throughout the week, while 80 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.
Jas Stephens Real Estate agent and auctioneer Jade Mobbs began proceedings with a vendor bid of $650,000, to which she received no counter-bids.
“You need to put your hand up to negotiate with the vendor inside,” she called out, working hard to invigorate the small crowd, who shivered on the cold, sunny Melbourne morning.
After calling a second vendor bid of $675,000 – “the vendor is looking for another $25,000 on top” – Mobbs passed in the property. She said a bidder had offered $680,000 after the auction, but it was not accepted.
The new price for the unit is set at $710,000, which was also its reserve. Mobbs said she expected to have the sale wrapped up by Sunday.
“I’ve had great numbers through the property – I think I’ve had about 43 groups in 3½ weeks, 17 contract requests. So for it to pass in, it’s a little surprising,” she said.
An interested buyer, a man, who had the “contract reviewed and done his due diligence”, turned up at the auction but didn’t bid, she added.
Mobbs said that while there were still plenty of buyers out there, especially in the first home buyer market, “I’m hearing people want to wait a little bit longer because they feel prices might drop”.
“But as a brand, we’ve been selling well – we’ve sort of been around that 60 per cent to 70 per cent [clearance rate] mark week on week,” she said.
In Bentleigh a three-bedroom unit passed in at $940,000 at auction, $80,000 below reserve. But agents were hopeful it would sell over the weekend.
The home at 2/12 Gilmour Road, listed with a price guide of $950,000 to $1,000,000, had been freshly renovated and landscaped by its investor vendor, said Ben Quigley, Woodards Carnegie and Bentleigh lead agent and auctioneer.
“A lot of work has been done to the property in presenting it to the market by the vendors – they’ve done a great job,” he said. “And bottom line, being on 341 square meters of land, it really represents very good value.”
The auction kicked off with a genuine bid of $930,000 from a single bidder, a professional woman, which Quigley countered with a vendor’s bid of $940,000.
“We passed in to the buyer who offered $930,000, and they went to $960,000 in post-auction negotiations,” he said.
However, with the reserve set at $1,020,000, “that wasn’t going to put a deal together”.
“But there’s been a couple of calls, so hopefully something might eventuate over the weekend,” Quigley said.
There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.
Women comprised the bulk of interested buyers, with some first home buyers and downsizers also in the mix, Quigley said.
He thinks buyers are being careful and watching for further price falls, but cautions that if they wait too long, they may miss their chance.
“You’ve got to find it, pick it at the right time … because when it bounces, it’ll bounce so quick,” he said. Vendors are being realistic, he added.
In St Kilda East, in the inner south-east, a spacious unit sold for $625,000 to a first-home buyer after a rapid-fire auction.
The three-bedroom apartment on 3/233 Alma Road, featuring a lounge room and separate dining room, had a price guide of $550,000 to $600,000 and a reserve price of $600,000.
Woodards Elsternwick agent Skye Jefferys said the auction, which opened with a genuine bid of $550,000 and drew about 30 people, had two bidders initially go head-to-head in increments of $10,000.
“Then a third bidder came in at the last minute at the $590,000 mark, and then the third bidder and the first bidder went head-to-head until it sold to the first bidder – a first-home buyer – for $625,000,” she said.
The vendors were two sisters selling on behalf of their aunty’s estate.
Jefferys said buyers were still interested.
“I think that there’s plenty of people coming out to auctions and, yeah, people are bidding.”
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