‘Exciting’ summer tipped for Mornington Peninsula after Portsea auction tops reserve by $500,000

[bayside]

18 DEC 2018

'Coastal property has been tipped for a hotter summer property market than Melbourne’s lukewarm spring.

A wave of bidders splashed a $500,000 premium on a Portsea holiday home at the weekend.

The multimillion-dollar house at 6 Tea Tree Rise went under the hammer on Sunday, December 16, and a wave of bidders pushed it to a $4.75 million sale.

RT Edgar director James Paynter said the buyer came from Brighton and had refused to back down, despite having seen the home for the first time that day.

He’s expecting an “exciting’” summer as a result.

“If this is what’s coming for the peninsula in summer, it’s going to be a really good summer for auctions,” Mr Paynter said.

A total of five groups bid for the stunning six-bedroom, six-bathroom house, kicking things off with a $3.6 million initial offer.

The home was called on the market at the top of its range at about $4.25 million, but the offers kept on until $4.75 million.

“The buyer turned up on the day and had never seen it before, and went toe-to-toe with a buyer who had been in love with it from the first week we opened it,” Mr Paynter said.

“I had a pretty good product, and there aren’t many on the peninsula to rival something like that.

“And the market reacted really well.”

All of the buyers had come from Melbourne and were looking for a holiday home, which he said boded well for most property markets along the coast.

He expected more affordable homes might see similar enthusiasm, with holiday home buyers typically in a different demographic to the typical homebuyer in Melbourne.

“If they are priced correctly, they are going to be okay,” he said.

Those who did not price their homes correctly could face long stints — around 250 days — on the market, however, he said.

CoreLogic Australian head of real estate Geoff White said he anticipated a more subdued coastal market across summer than recent years — but one that might perform better than that seen in Melbourne across spring.

“Some of those properties will be quite different and have different price brackets and even different types of people buying them — people who are less reliant on traditional lending,” Mr White said.

“So it might be a bit of an improvement to what we have been seeing.”