‘Welcome to 2026’: Buyer pays $2.6m for home at auction with just five bids

A self-confessed Bulldogs fanatic paid $2,601,000 for a four-bedroom Belmore home at auction on Saturday after being priced out of the suburb for decades.

More than 30 people gathered under fruit trees in the backyard of 79 Leylands Parade as Pulse Property Agents auctioneer Lucas Pratt took a handful of bids over a half-hour process.

While four bidders registered it was down to two from the start, with the opening bid of $2.5 million meeting the price guide. Several minutes later, another bid was placed to raise the offer by $10,000.

The property was one of 1307 scheduled to go to auction in Sydney this week. By evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 60 per cent from 804 reported results throughout the week, while 226 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.

After five bids, the auction stalled at $2,601,000.

Real estate agent Luke Lombardi consulted the vendors before declaring the deceased estate on the market. No further bids were made and the property sold. The reserve was $2.7 million.

Lombardi said the pace was indicative of the market today.

“Welcome to 2026,” he said. “Buyers are very hesitant to bid in this climate – they have the power. If [a vendor] has a decent offer on the day, you should accept it.”

Both bidders were owner-occupiers, with the successful buyer returning with family from Parramatta, where he had moved to find an affordable home. As prices in Parramatta increased, he used the capital gain to buy back into the area where he grew up.

His recently married daughter will move into the two-bedroom granny flat at the rear of the 727-square-metre block.

He said Belmore had more to offer now. “Things have picked up a lot around here – it’s a lot better with cafés and restaurants now.”

In Redfern, a builder with plans to renovate was the successful bidder for a single-storey, two-bedroom terrace at 74 Kepos Street, paying $1.87 million for the rundown property.

Bidding began at $1.5 million and rose in increments of $20,000 and $10,000 before slowing to $5000 and $1000 bids.

The guide was $1.6 million, and the reserve was $1.7 million.

Oxford Agency sales agent Matt Marano said it was a classic case of “worst house in the best street”, with the 118sqm property offering plenty of scope for improvement.

Kepos Street Kitchen at the end of the cul-de-sac was a finalist in Good Food’s 2025 Essential Sydney Cafes and Bakeries in the all-rounder category.

“It’s one of the best streets in Redfern, and it’s tightly held,” Marano said.

In Coogee, a three-bedroom apartment 300 metres from the beach sold for $2,365,000 after the successful buyer made a final bid against themselves.

Bidding for the 27/10 Alexander Street home opened at $1.9 million, as a future downsizer and a newly single mother of two competed for the freshly renovated property in the classic blond brick walk-up building.

After bids slowed at $2.33 million, the downsizer, who lives locally, made the final $30,000 bid against themselves to secure the property, which had a reserve of $2.2 million. The guide was $2 million.

There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.

Ray White Eastern Beaches agent Ty Demirezen said it was a good result in an otherwise sluggish market. A similar apartmentin nearby Arden Street sold less than a week ago for $2.24 million.

“This property is a bit of an outlier,” Demirezen said. “We were expecting $2.15 million, but competition was fierce. The rest of the market is definitely slowing down. We’re seeing less off-market transactions. Buyers are getting better value letting [properties] go to market.”

Demirezen said the vendor was a widow who had lived there for more than 20 years, but was no longer able to navigate the stairs because of mobility issues.

At Bilgola Beach, a five-bedroom, two-storey beach house is for sale at $6.1 million after passing in at auction following a vendor’s bid of $6 million.

Thedeceased estate at 13 The Serpentine had attracted strong interest from a holidaymaker and an owner-occupier leading up to auction day, butnone of the 20 people put in a bid.

Amy Young of Laing + Simmons Young Property said international uncertainty and talk of another interest rate rise had shaken buyer confidence.

“Buyers are sitting on their hands,” she said.

However, she said that the market would adjust to the news cycle within a matter of weeks.

“More than half of our marketplace don’t have a mortgage, but news of the war [in the Middle East] is rocking people,” Young said. “We are in a period of adjustment right now, and the buying conditions are phenomenal.”