’Best of 2024’: rundown shop sells for double $2.5m reserve

245 Rowe St, Eastwood sold for $5,625,000. It last traded for $245,000 in 1995.

A rundown old shopfront in Eastwood has sold for $5,625,000 — well over double the $2.5m reserve — in what auctioneer Damien Cooley described as the “best commercial auction of 2024”.

The 207sqm shop with office above at 245 Rowe St was bought for $245,000 in 1995, records show. The late owner died at the age of 105 last October.

Cooley described last Thursday’s result as “incredible”, with over 100 bids and eight bidders.

Yet Colliers agent Harry Bui, who sold it with colleague Andrew Bui, didn’t sound that surprised.

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The shops in Rowe St, Eastwood are very tightly held.

The last time a commercial property came up for auction in the area was in 2018 and it also sold for a big price.

“These shops are very tightly held,” he explained.

“As soon as something comes on the market it sells very quickly and for a good price.

“We have a lot of Chinese and Korean owners who like to hold onto property for a very long time.

“The last shop that came up in the area was in 2018 and it also sold for a big price, $7m, so this time was no different — it was a deceased estate, we had a reserve of $2.5m and it sold for $5,625,000.”

An aerial view of popular site.

The new owner intends to open up a doctor’s surgery there.

Mr Bui said more than 30 people attended the auction, 65 per cent of them investors and the rest owner occupiers. Apart from all the locals, there was an overseas buyer keen.

But in the end, the tenant, who’d been operating his computer shop from the premises for more than 20 years, snapped it up.

It’s understood he wanted it for his son, a GP, who plans to open a doctor’s surgery there.

In other commercial auction results, Cooley sold an ANZ Bank at 230 Beamish St,
Campsie for $5.8m against a reserve of $4.2m and the St George Bank in Griffith for $2,063,500.