A home that survived a fire just three months ago has sold for $45,000 shy of $1m in Brisbane’s competitive market.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 25 Othello St, Sunnybank Hills, was being used as a rental property for more than a decade, until one of the property’s owners passed away.
His 80 year-old wife became the sole owner of the home, and came to find a house that had been turned into a wreck.
25 Othello St, Sunnybank Hills
The house was used as a rental for the last decade, and had turned into a wreck when the sole living owner returned to look at it.
Ray White Rochedale agent Anton Silaen said inspections found holes in the walls, windows and ceiling, and repairs would cost around $200,000.
“In January the oven caught on fire,” he said. “They found quite a few leaks from the roof … mould was on the walls and the ceiling, and the bathroom – it had never been washed in about 10 years.”
Mr Silaen said the vendor was “heartbroken” at the state of the house, and decided to sell the home at auction while being upfront about its condition.
The oven caught fire in January of that year, which revealed the house’s conditions to responders.
Places such as the bathroom had not been cleaned in years.
But the 607 sqm property ended up drawing a huge crowd.
A hundred people gathered at the house on Saturday morning, with a whopping 30 people registered as bidders.
What followed was a rapid-fire auction that took just 13 minutes to reach the conclusion.
Beginning at $500,000, it took 27 bids in that time to bring the price up to $955,000, where it sold well above the reserve price.
Mould was discovered across the house. Repairs were estimated to cost around $200,000.
The conditions of the house ended up attracting 30 registered bidders, keen to get a place in the area at a lower price.
Mr Silaen said some of the many registered bidders were intimidated by how fast the price went up.
“Everyone had a low budget, because they expected it to be sold well under $955,000,” he said. “The moment it went over $830,000 within less than three minutes, people got scared because the increment was quite big.”
“The owner is very happy,” Mr Silaen added, and said she was crying when she heard how much the dilapidated property would sell for.
“She even asked, ‘that price is very high – does the buyer have enough to fix everything?’”
Ray White Rochedale agent Anton Silaen with the vendor and her family, who sold for more than they expected when setting the reserve price.
Mr Silaen with the new owners, who plan to renovate the property and use it as an investment.
The new buyers were a pair who bought the property as an investment. They inspected it on the day of the auction with some potential builders who would conduct a renovation.
“I think they did a quick calculation in their mind,” Mr Silaen said. “They factored in that cost and said, ‘Yep – if it’s under $1m, it’s workable.’”
“They will do a complete renovation, which will cost them a lot of money. But they’ve been trying [to find] a property in the area, so they couldn’t believe they could score this slightly under their price expectation … they thought it’s a bargain.”
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