If you’ve ever wondered what a 3-bedroom house in Earlwood would fetch at auction with no reserve or price guide, February 13 2021 is your chance to find out.
The sellers of the home at 13 Birrellea Avenue in Earlwood, an inner west suburb neighbouring Marrickville and Campsie, are said to be happy with whatever price they get—which seems pretty reasonable when you see the condition of the place. A hoarder’s haven, the double brick home is filled with so much junk inside and out you’d think it’d been awaiting a council clean up for the past decade.
In listing pictures, a single car door inexplicably rests against the exterior of the house, while an array of broken furniture, torn boxes, vacuum cleaners and a grey leather car seat (presumably belonging to the same vehicle as the solo car door) fill the front porch. Inside, the situation is just as grim, with dirty dishes lining the kitchen counters and unwashed pans stacked in milk crates. As the Ray White listing suggests, the 3-bed, 1-bath home is in need of a total transformation. And like a really, really deep clean.
But once the junk is cleared, what’s a 518m2 block of land in this sought-after part of the trendy inner west likely to sell for under the hammer? Despite realestate.com.au teasing a $1 possibility ‘if it’s the only bid placed’, more realistic estimates point to the $1.1 million dollar range. Regardless of the price, without a guide, the outcome will offer a true reflection of the current market.
Back in August, a no-reserve auction for a family home in Epping ironically ended up fetching over $300K above the median price for similar homes in the area, albeit the condition of the property was in stark contrast to what’s up for grabs in Earlwood. In the Epping case, a wealthy couple decided to ‘pay it forward’ by offering their 4-bedroom home to the highest bidder, even if that meant handing over the keys for $1. Alas, they ended up with 1,871,000 times that, but the sentiment was sweet. Bidding apparently began at $20 before reaching the $1m mark by the third bid.
No-reserve auctions are about as rare as a kept New Year’s Resolution, but every now and then, they occur. In 2019, a no-reserve auction in Canberra set a new record for the suburb of Fraser, with a 5-bedder going for $1,019,000. So, if anything, records show that the allure of a bargain may result in getting even more for a property than if a reserve had been set.
As with many inner west suburbs, property in Earlwood is in high demand. The median price for a 4-bedroom home is around the $1.5 million mark, though keep in mind that’s before you factor in the detached car door in the front yard. The next open house is this Saturday at 12pm before the auction at 12.30pm on the 13th of Feb.
