Old-fashioned studio fails to ride the Bondi Beach property wave

With all its media attention on the Bondi Beach unit measuring just 16 square metres, 14/68 Gould Street's auction offering ended up as a no-bid auction.

Marketed as Sydney's tiniest apartment, it had $270,000 price hopes -  about $17,000 a square metre.

It has been recently rented at $300 a week, and RP Data records show at around $190 a week five years ago.

At $270,000 it would represent a gross 5.7% yield.

The property last traded for $165,000 in 2001, and before that $100,000 in 1999 and $96,000 in 1996.

The block's most recent studio sale was January when the 16-square-metre unit 9 sold fetched $220,000, having initially sought $300,000 – and it was available for rent recently at $280 a week. It had been available for rent at $190 a week five years ago.

Before that the 18-square-metre unit 22 sold for $210,000 in August 2010; the 18-square-metre unit 8 fetched $230,000 in 2010, and the priciest of 16-square-metre units, number 15, sold for a record $240,000 in 2009.

The listing,  described as ''intimate'', was through Kiel Glass of Ray White Balmain, who had previously worked in the Bondi region.

"Some of the media might have scared off interest," he said yesterday, confirming just the two registered bidders attended the auction.

The kitchen space comes with a sink, a brown bar fridge, a plywood box pantry with a curtain, a couple of cupboards and an electric oven with two hotplates.

The mirror on the back of the door adds to the illusion of space. The laundry is communal, as is the rooftop terrace.

"This is an ideal chance for the first-home buyer or an astute investor seeking a beach pad and looking to enter a blue-ribbon beachside locale," Glass says.

Off-the-plan Bondi Beach prices tipped $45,000 a square metre last weekend in sale at the Campbell Parade Pacific Bondi Beach  development.