$2.24m steal by the bay
Melbourne buyers’ delight
MELBOURNE homebuyers reckon they’ve found a steal, after securing a clifftop Rippleside property auction, smashing the seller’s reserve price by more than $200,000.
The buyers were pinching themselves after the auction, unable to believe they could purchase the waterfront property at 7 Helen St, Rippleside, with uninterrupted views for $2.24 million.
The buyers had sold up in Brunswick and had been looking to relocate to Geelong, Buxton, Newtown agent Tom Butters said. “It was one of the first ones (they had looked at),” he said. “They wanted something special.”
Mr Butters said bidding opened at $1.9 million and the property declared on the market at $2 million as five bidders competed.
“After the auction, they kept saying, I can’t believe you can buy this sort of waterfront property for this price,” Mr Butters said. “In Melbourne, this would be $10 million.”
Compared with similar homes on Melbourne’s bayside, Rippleside is affordable. A golden mile beachfront house at 38 Dawson Ave, Brighton, sold for $8.5 million in 2014, while a house opposite the Ricketts Point Teahouse at 411 Beach Rd, Beaumaris, sold last year for $4.95 million. Further around the bay, a house on the water at 49 Rossedale Cres, Mt Eliza sold for $4 million in 2016.
The two-storey Rippleside house features unimpeded views across Corio Bay in a location close to Osborne Park and St Helens Beach.
The spacious open-plan kitchen, dining and loungeroom zone downstairs flows outside through a wall of glass sliding doors that extend the living space to the edge of the cliff. The sale is the most expensive on the strip since Barry and Tessa Walker sold at 1 Helen St for $2.5 million in 2010. The home last sold in 2010 for $1.27 million, CoreLogic records show.
“It’s a pretty exclusive location,” Mr Butters said.
“With the developments that are coming through around here, like Balmoral Quay, they are putting the area a bit more on the map,” he said. McGrath, Geelong agent Jim Cross said while the majority of buyers in Balmoral Quay were locals, purchasers from the Surf Coast, Melbourne and Sydney had bought into the development.
“They are all seeing the Geelong waterfront as an affordable lifestyle,” Mr Cross said. “Part of the reason there are lots of buyers in the suburb in Rippleside is because the development is spending a lott of money on infrastructure e with putting in the promenadede walkway linking St Helens Beach h to Rippleside, , creating a walkway all the way around the Eastern Beach,” h,” he said.