Family buys $1.8m Essendon home to be closer to schools

Updated August 10, 2026 — 12:01pm,first published 11:40amA family wanting to be closer to schools paid $1,805,000 for an Essendon family home at auction on Saturday.The renovated four-bedroom house with sleek kitchen and putting green at 186 Napier Street sold above guide of $1.6 million to $1.68 million and the $1.75 million reserve set on auction day.There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.The property was one of 627 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne last week. By Saturday evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 63 per cent from 465 reported results throughout the week, while 62 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.The last time the preliminary clearance rate was that high was on February 28 when it hit 66 per cent. Last week’s figure is likely to be revised downwards, but is close to the level that indicates a balanced market, rather than a buyer’s market.Jellis Craig Essendon’s Christian Lonzi said five bidders registered for the auction and three competed for the keys.The bidding opened at $1.6 million, with the buyers, a family wanting to be closer to the nearby schools, making the opening offer.A salvo of bids followed, some in increments of $20,000 and $10,000 and some as low as $1000.The final, winning bid was $5000. Lonzi said the vendors, who had owned the property since 2020, had undertaken a renovation on the bathroom and kitchen, which made it attractive to buyers.The clearance rate, which pointed to a more balanced market in Melbourne, was due to a lack of new homes for sale, Lonzi said.“I think what it is, is a lack of a stock at the moment, but that will be a temporary thing,” he said. “I imagine more stock will come onto the market over spring.“The challenge is going to be that spring is before the [state] election. There’s a bit of ‘sitting on hands’ because people want to see what the result of the election will be.”Elsewhere, a young couple paid $1,136,000 for a two-bedroom house in Port Melbourne at auction, buying from an investor who had decided to sell.The renovated single-fronted Victorian at 168 Albert Street was turnkey, with period details and a smart kitchen.Bidding began at $1.05 million, the bottom of the price guide of $1.05 million to $1.1 million.Two parties participated, and the price rose in increments ranging from $10,000 to $1000 until the couple beat a young man for the keys.“It was quite a strong result for Port Melbourne, going above reserve,” Jellis Craig Port Melbourne selling agent Jon Kett said. “Port Melbourne has been a little bit slow.”He said the vendor was an investor living on the coast, and thought the home was attractive as it did not need work.“It was move-in ready. There are not many move-in ready properties under $1.2 million where you can move in and live,” he said.He noticed an uptick in buyer activity in recent days.“It has been sluggish in Port Melbourne but over the weekend it seems there was a lot more buyer activity,” he said.“I think people have realised this is the new normal for prices … people still have to buy.”In the popular north-east suburb of Eaglemont, a four-bedroom house at 24 Glenard Drive sold for $1,755,000 after passing in at auction.The buyers, a family, made a solitary bid of $1.71 million, and then negotiated the sale after the auction.Nelson Alexander Ivanhoe’s James Labiris said 50 people watched the auction, as onlookers were keen to see the sale price.The red-brick home, with a leafy backyard, sold right on the reserve, and in between the advertised guide of $1.7 million to $1.8 million.Labiris said the vendors had owned the property for seven years, and were planning to downsize there but changed tack. They had rented the home while deciding.“There’s a lot of buyers out and about now and I reckon people have sort of come to terms with things [in the market],” Labiris said. “It really is a new normal.”That meant people who needed to buy or sell were still doing so, he said.LJ Hooker head of research Mathew Tiller described Melbourne’s clearance rate as “a much better result than what we’ve seen in the last couple of months”.He said more buyers had started turning up to open homes, including first home buyers.“People are now looking, have seen that in the broader Victorian market that prices have been quite soft for pretty much the whole of this year, and are looking to get in,” he said.He thought the clearance rate may be a little more volatile going forward and would depend on the outcome of the Reserve Bank’s meeting on Tuesday.“If rates go up, it will soften buyer sentiment. If they remain stable, we might see auction clearance rates remain a little bit more elevated,” he said.Property listingsFrom our partners