Best value buy

1/47 Albion Street, Waverley 2024

This 2 bed, 1 bath, 1 parking apartment sold in October for $875,000. It needed cosmetic love to the kitchen, bathroom, floors, walls, but it is a 77sqm 2 bed apartment, so the most you'd ever be spending to make it immaculate is $150,000 (including lost rent while you renovate).

Same block, same, size, same aspect apartment fully renovated sold earlier in the year for $1,350,000 (4/47 Albion St).

With stamp duty costs + a full renovation - you would still be $300,000 ahead!

Best Beach Buying: Liveable 2 bedroom apartment 500m to Coogee beach for under $1,000,000

3/58 Dudley St Coogee 2034

This 2 bedroom apartment was nothing flash, but it was good enough to live in, had a private courtyard (exclusive use) and 2 car parking spaces! 500m to Coogee Beach!

The parking alone would be worth $100k. Sold for $980,000.

Home that defied the headlines with a 21% price increase

31A Florence Street St Peters 2044

Sold August 2022: $2,375,000

Sold August 2020: $1,950,000

That is a 21% price increase in 2 years, when the newspapers want you to believe that property prices are falling off the cliff. This property was new in 2020 and had no changes made to it before it sold again in August 2022.

If you think it may be an anomaly, it isn't, as the neighbouring duplex at 31 Florence St also sold for $2,375,000 a few weeks later.

Longest auction I attended: 1 hour!

23 Heights Crescent, Middle Cove 2068

The bidding started at $3.6m and slowly worked towards the $4m mark where about 5 of the registered bidders dropped out. 2 bidders the crawled the property towards $4.05 where it was announced "on the market".

It is always fascinating to see buyer behaviour change once a property is announced as "on the market". These same 2 bidders took the price up to where it landed at $4,335,000.

Home I would have bought if I had a spare $5m:

5/17 Wonderland Avenue, Tamarama

This apartment is made for entertaining, with the Eastern Beaches lifestyle and the perfect balcony for a morning coffee. Maybe next year!