Marathon auction as two-in-one Richmond cafe and house sells

A Richmond shop and house combo was at the centre of a marathon auction with multiple buyers pushing the price more than $150,000 past reserve. 

Five bidders vied for the keys to the two-bedroom home and cafe at 251 Church St, with more than 80 bids placed, mainly in $1000 increments.

The property was called on the market at $1.19 million and the hammer fell at $1.341 million.

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A price guide of $1.1-$1.2 million was quoted in the lead up to auction.

A local family secured the keys and plan to keep the cafe and house as an investment property.

Biggin & Scott Richmond agent Allan Cove says it was a long and drawn-out auction that lead to a local investor family securing the keys.

“The property was popular as it was a leased residence and shop with a reasonable return,” Cove says.

“The shop component had a four-year lease returning $36,000 a year and the residence behind was just over $20,000 a year.”

The property at 251 Church St in Richmond returns about $56,000 a year.

Cove says the potential to update and extend had also proved popular with buyers.

“It’s got the potential to extend out the back, maybe do a second storey above the existing residence, but it does fall in the heritage overlay which protects the facade and front room,” he says.

“It also has two street frontages.”

The cafe at the front, The Old Barber Shop, is a busy spot with regular customers, according to Cove.

The impressive sale emerged amid a weekend where clearance rates were dramatically low.

Inner Melbourne recorded a preliminary 55.9% clearance rate across 204 auctions last week, compared to the dramatically low 47.5% from 1058 auctions across Melbourne as a whole.

“Inner city Melbourne is always going to be popular,” Cove says.

“The market has softened somewhat but instead of properties getting the extremely high prices, they are getting what they should.”

This article from the Herald Sun originally appeared as “Two-in-one Richmond property notches sale more than $150,000 above reserve in marathon auction”.