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A detached garage has sold for almost four times its asking price at auction, in yet another sign that Australia’s housing crisis is spiraling out of control.
approximately 55 square meter garage in Melbourne’s eastern seaside suburb of St Kilda, it went under the hammer with an asking price of $100,000, but ended up fetching a whopping $391,000.
Estate agent Andrew Turner, who sold the Gray St property, told Daily Mail Australia that the winning bidder was going to continue to use it as a garage as there is no off-street on the residential street.
“The person who bought it is a car enthusiast,” Turner said.
He wants to sit a classic car there. She has been searching for a while and has focused on this.
Estate agent Andrew Turner, who sold the Gray St property, told Daily Mail Australia that the winning bidder was going to continue to use it as a garage as there is no off-street on the residential street (pictured)
A garage in the eastern Melbourne seaside suburb of St Kilda has sold for a whopping $391,000 after being auctioned with an asking price of $100,000.
The garage, which sits at the end of a driveway, has a high ceiling, exposed wooden beams, and brick walls with a concrete floor.
It is not connected to sewage, water or electricity, but this did not deter those desperate to find a place of their own.
“We thought it would go to a first-time home buyer, in fact, that was the bulk of the research,” Turner said.
‘There are a lot of first-time homebuyers who obviously saw this as an opportunity to get into the market.
“I think people are now thinking outside the square.”
Turner said the garage had previously been used for storage only, but the owners of the house next door had decided they no longer needed it.
He held up about 40 groups for inspection and said that interest in the small single property had been ‘absolutely incredible’.
“It certainly has attracted a lot of attention, not just locally and nationally, but globally as well,” said Mr. Turner.
The listing for the approximately 550-square-foot garage drew interest from interstate buyers and investors, but primarily young couples and first-time homebuyers.
I have received inquiries from the United States, Poland and Germany.
‘There were buyers there who just wanted it purely for storage.
‘I thought $100,000 just for storage, wow.
“There were a couple of artists who were also interested, for a studio it would have been perfect, so it makes sense.”
Turner said he had only sold once before a solitary garage, which sold for $645,000 in 2020 in the inner Melbourne suburb of Albert Park.
However, because this last sale had been a ‘one time only’, it had been difficult to set the price.
“We looked high and low to see if other garages had sold because we need comparable sales, there are no comparable sales,” he said.
Turner said he was a little disappointed that the garage wasn’t going to a first-time home buyer.
A garage (pictured left at the end of the driveway) in St Kilda, Melbourne, will be used by a car enthusiast.
“I really wanted to see what a home buyer would have done with it,” he said.
“A year or two years from now, it would have been interesting to come back and follow up.”
He the median unit price in St Kilda is $567,070 and $1.55 million is the median home price.
Property prices in the Melbourne property market have fallen to levels not seen since mid-2021, yet remain 17.2% higher than before the Covid pandemic.