Buyer bids against themselves to secure a classic Coogee apartment for almost $2.4m

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A three-bedroom apartment 300 metres from Coogee Beach sold for $2,365,000 on Saturday after the successful buyer made a final bid against themselves.

Bidding for the 27/10 Alexander Street home opened at $1.9 million, moving quickly as a future downsizer and a newly single mother of two competed for the freshly renovated property in the classic blond brick walk-up building.

After bids slowed at $2.33 million, the downsizer, who lives locally, made the final $30,000 bid against themselves to secure the property, which had a reserve of $2.2 million. The guide was $2 million.

There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.

Ray White Eastern Beaches sales agent Ty Demirezen said it was a good result in an otherwise sluggish market. A similar apartment closer to the beach in nearby Arden Street sold less than a week ago for $2.24 million.

“This property is a bit of an outlier,” Demirezen said. “We were expecting $2.15 million, but competition was fierce. The rest of the market is definitely slowing down. We’re seeing less off-market transactions. Buyers are getting better value letting [properties] go to market.”

Demirezen said the vendor was a widow who had lived there for more than 20 years but was no longer able to navigate the stairs in a walk-up building because of mobility issues.

The three-bedroom apartment in the blond brick building was renovated just before going to auction.

The property was one of 969 scheduled to go to auction in Sydney this week.

At Bilgola Beach, a five-bedroom, two-storey beach house is for sale at $6.1 million after passing in at auction following a vendor’s bid of $6 million.

The fully renovated deceased estate at 13 The Serpentine had attracted strong interest from a holidaymaker and an owner/occupier leading up to auction day, but no one in the crowd of 20 people put in a bid.

Amy Young of Laing + Simmons Young Property said international uncertainty and talk of another interest rate rise had shaken buyer confidence.

“Buyers are sitting on their hands,” she said.

The five-bedroom, two-storey property at Bilgola Beach passed in with a vendor’s bid of $6 million.

However, she said that the market would adjust to the news cycle within a matter of weeks, and she expected buyers to respond accordingly.

“More than half of our marketplace don’t have a mortgage, but news of the war [in the Middle East] is rocking people,” Young said. “We are in a period of adjustment right now, and the buying conditions are phenomenal.”