Nicole Lindsay
Date: March 5, 2012
Source: theage.com.au

The weekend's damp weather made for some challenging auctions held among crowds of umbrellas and pouring rain but another clearance rate above the 60 per cent mark delivered relief to agents and buyer advocates.

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria recorded a clearance rate of 62 per cent over the weekend from 797 auctions.

Following last weekend's 63 per cent, some pundits are cautiously describing the market as ''stabilised''.

REIV spokesman Robert Larocca said it was the first two weekends in a row of 60-plus per cent clearance rates for 51 weeks.

''These results will be met with some pleasure across the industry, from agents to people who are selling their homes in the next month,'' Mr Larocca said.

''We don't want to overstate the results. There's still a long way to go but the market is clearly resilient.''

Vendors and buyers are meeting on new mutual ground, which is resulting in prices both higher and lower than expected.

RT Edgar agent Mark Wridgway, who deals mostly in new stock in the eastern suburbs, said the prices have come off 10-15 per cent.

''For a developer, that's your profit margin gone,'' he said.

Undervalued suburbs, however, are doing well. Peter Markovic, of Peter Markovic Real Estate, conducted an extraordinary auction at 89 Turner Street, Abbotsford, for an elderly woman who had lived in the house for more than 40 years.

The property was unreserved and quoted at more than $650,000. The auction attracted more than 22 bidders, four of whom were still in the running at the end. Developers were outbid by a young couple planning to make it their family home.

The market had started to turn, Mr Markovic said, adding: ''Before Christmas we were concerned but after January, February and now March, we are comfortable.

''The buyer inquiry rate is there and people are purchasing with caution but in the inner suburban areas you can't be cautious forever.''

Nelson Alexander auctioneer Arch Staver, who sold the top house at 112 McKean Street in North Fitzroy on Saturday, said buyers had told him they were following instructions to wait until a property was on the market before making a bid.

''But if you don't bid, it won't get on the market,'' Mr Staver said.

That was the case on Canterbury's Golden Mile, where agent Marshall White auctioned 16 Monomeath Avenue, a five-bedroom 1920s-style house on 1170 square metres of prized land.

With about 80 people gathered in the front garden, auctioneer Doug McLauchlan started with a vendor bid of $4.5 million. It was followed by two further vendor bids and passed in at $4.8 million. The house is now for sale at its reserve of $5.2 million.

An auction at 65 Alfred Crescent in North Fitzroy also started slowly, with two vendor bids of $1.65 million and $1.7 million.

The house holds a landmark 327 square metre-position on the corner of Rowe Street and attracted a huge crowd.

After Jellis Craig auctioneer Craig Shearn's vendor, two genuine bidders sang out from under umbrellas, taking it up to $1.93 million. At that point, a third bidder emerged and the house sold under the hammer at $1.98 million.