It’s Monday after a lockdown weekend, with the landscape changing for property buying/selling/renting (and everyone else in Sydney) on Friday.

A lot went down quickly. Auctions were brought forward, and everything else moved to the online space. Under the current guidelines, we’re back to 100% private inspections.

And even though Sydney loves the theatre of public real estate events, they’re only one part of the wider selling process at BresicWhitney. Some reassurance can be found in the numbers from last week.

We held 24 auctions with 9 selling under the hammer and 14 selling prior. The 5 online auctions we hosted all sold successfully, contributing to our weekly clearance of 95.8%.

Campaign momentum certainly didn’t stall. What we did see, was more people moving quickly to ready themselves to act competitively.

An “off-market auction” worth noting

Even before we were expecting to go into lockdown, Hunters Hill agent Nicole Robertson was in the midst of facilitating an off-market sale, showing 1 Tiree Avenue, Hunters Hill exclusively to BresicWhitney buyers, and by private appointments.

After 2 weeks and 15 buyers through, there were around 7 people showing serious interest. An auction was booked, and 3 people delivered a massive 79 total bids between them.

“Because off-market listings are often being shown to the best buyers in the market, it’s easy to pick up early interest and move quickly,” Nicole says.

“Rather than going back and forth with offers behind the scenes, it was better to hold an off-market auction and create transparent negotiations for everyone.

“It’s a low-key approach for owners who prefer that process, with the only people following the sale being competitive buyers.”

The home sold for $4.625 million.

With more people using private appointments to pursue property during lockdown, we can expect to see similar scenarios in coming weeks.

On day 2 of lockdown on Sunday, another Paddington home sold in the $2 millions via off-market negotiations with Emily Davidson.

Fact: more people are looking

According to Domain, the major property websites experienced significant increases in traffic during the recent Melbourne lockdowns. With those listings performing better than they would have under normal conditions, Sydney buyers/sellers can take some assurances that the show will go on.

Last week, the “off-market” section of the BresicWhitney website was in our Top-10 most visited pages, up there with the most clicked-on drawcard properties.

Our 5 online auctions from Saturday

202/117 Kippax Street, Surry Hills – sold for $2.35m
3 registrations 
3 active bidders

170 Bridge Road, Glebe – sold for $2m
8 registrations
5 active bidders

1/46 Victoria Street, Potts Point – sold for $1.86m
3 registrations
2 active bidders

27/61-89 Buckingham Street, Surry Hills – sold for $1.2m
5 registrations
4 active bidders

15/23-25 Ross Street, Forest Lodge – sold for $893,500
7 registered
5 active bidders

The practice of phoning each participant to check in before the final hammer fell drew a number of last-minute bids – the same way our live auctions play out.

Avoid the crowds and stay safe

If you’re looking for solutions in the coming weeks, that starts with personal buyer introductions. It always does. The BresicWhitney offices and agents work as one network (the opposite of a franchise), regularly tapping into buyers from different areas, where people are often searching for similar homes across different price points and higher.

A point of difference that often brings bigger results, the practice of private buying/selling is something that’s already an integral part of the way we do things at BresicWhitney.

Stay safe.

And connect with our sales team here.