Another cautious weekend for buyers – fringe suburbs with houses requiring work or having dominant negatives are finding the going tough, while good houses with little work required and ticking all (or many of) the boxes are selling.

27 Binnie Street Brighton East.
A functional, pretty Californian bungalow with great potential, we rated this 673/1000. Big positives here were the street presence and north facing rear orientation – the street itself ranks as one Brighton East’s good ones, without being brilliant. In it’s current form the house is liveable, with tall ceilings carried throughout.

This was a very quiet auction – about 30 people. Buxton auctioneer David Hart opened the bidding at the lower end of the quote range at $970,000 and that is where it passed in at. Fairly predictable result here as house requires renovation. Two options are obvious, keep things at single level or go up. Up is probably the right way to go. Below indicates a possible two-storey option. With three out of three auctions failing on the weekend, Brighton East is suffering at present.

1 Hanby Street Brighton.
A better turn up here, but again a non-seller. Whilst this has incredible WOW it falls down in other areas – small land content (320m2), no downstairs bedroom. We rated this 514/1000. Bidding opened on vendor bid of $1.7m and has a reserve of $1.89m. Again not a totally unbelievable result given price expectations.

39 Denman Avenue Glen Iris.
A recently built Porter Davis house in a good location with north facing rear. We rated this 717/1000 and it sold on the weekend for an undisclosed figure (in the $1.6m range). Highlights here for us were the pool and rear open plan living area. Only real negative were the small sizes of bedrooms 2,3 & 4.