More strength in Sydney than Melbourne in auction tipping competition properties

This weekend a large crowd at an Elsternwick auction did not translate into many bidders, but in Sydney an Erskineville auction drew more competitive bidding.

There's now a tipping website, www.propertytycoon.com.au, where punters can guess auction five results in Melbourne and Sydney, with no outlay. It's mostly about testing your market knowledge with a small cash prize as a sweetener.

At 1 Baxter Street, Elsternwick (pictured below) a lot of neighbours looked on as only one punter had his heart set on joining their community. After an opening vendor bid of $750,000 a solitary live bid of $760,000 closed out the auction proceedings.

However. the passed in value was a long way off both the vendors and purchasers expectations and after a short negotiation a contract was signed at $840,000.

There was a bit more strength in the auction for 48a John Street, Erskineville (pictured below), as four bidders competed for the property before it was passed in at $1.12 million. The purchasers had to up the ante by $15,000 before the vendor agreed to sell for $1.135 million.

The sale was a good result for the vendor, who paid $791,000 for the property in 2006 and has pocket capital growth at just over 6% per annum. This is almost double the median growth for Sydney houses over the same period.