A heartfelt handover… a North Melbourne Cherished Home Sells

A delightful couple with a tight brief engaged us to assist them. They’d canvassed North Melbourne and they were keen on the ever-popular University High School Zone.

Our first step was to print out the zoning boundaries.

The A4 page is pinned on our wall and reminds us daily of the streets which are within our search band. So when this double-fronted, much loved family home came up for sale, we knew it had a fair chance of capturing our buyers’ hearts. Offering three bedrooms,secure parking via rear bluestone laneway, and boasting one of North Melbourne’s loveliest street scapes, this home represented opportunity for our buyers.

Not surprisingly, on auction day the house drew a huge crowd. Neighbours, buyers, advocates and commentators were all out in force. This neighbourhood-friendly circular closed street had been a well trodden path over the decades and the array of gorgeous Victorian terraces along this stretch were a picture-perfect line up.

We’d assessed comparable sales. Our clients were serious about the property and we knew our values.

Competition was tough and more than six bidders threw down their bids; some unpredictable, some returning with gusto after opting out, and some just throwing all their weight against it in a last ditched attempt to buy the house. The hammer finally fell after many final auction calls. The auctioneer drew out the final line with not three, but five declarations…. “Going, going, … GOING… GO-ing…. GONE!”

The incredible moment of the day however wasn’t the fall of the hammer. It was in fact the friendly, emotional, heartfelt hand-over. From a lovely (and extended) family who had not only cared for aging parents who lived in the home, but had grown up in the house; they’d been children, teenagers, and young families themselves. Their mother had cooked in the ‘second kitchen’ to keep the original kitchen neat and tidy as a ‘show home’ kitchen. The neighbours came out to share tales of the friendly owner who had sat on the porch and watched the world go buy.

This house didn’t just have a gorgeous Victorian history, it had a family who, since 1962, had lived in it, shaped it and had called it home.

Our clients cared for this history.

They were touched by the family’s warmth and emotion, and they knew that their house was ready for it’s next family to write more history within it.

North Melbourne back it the fifties and sixties was a different suburb to what it’s become now. But the essence is special; so close to the city, bound for exciting changes, about to enjoy the benefits of the Arden Macaulay Plan, and home to some of the most gorgeous inner-city Victorian terraces.

Photos in Courtney St and Peel St, North Melbourne credited to Karl Halla