June 29, 2026 — 11:04amA young family paid $1.86 million for a family home in Mount Waverley at auction on Saturday, beating four other parties for a standout result in a sought-after school zone, despite the weak auction market.The five-bedroom house at 19 Meredith Street was listed with a price guide of $1.6 million to $1.7 million. The reserve was set at $1.7 million.The property was one of 775 scheduled to go to auction last week in Melbourne. By Saturday evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 55 per cent from 528 reported results throughout the week, while 88 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.There were five bidders for the Mount Waverley home, which included local upsizers and an international buyer.Bidding opened at $1.65 million from one of the bidders and moved in $20,000 increments up to $1.7 million.The bidding climbed by $65,000 in just a couple of minutes before a tense three-way battle closed out the 17-minute auction.Selling agent Jacob Biviano from Ray White said the turnout of 150 people who attended the auction came as a surprise.“We didn’t expect a crowd like that,” Mr Biviano said. “Homes that are renovated and ready to go and don’t require much work are the best sellers at the moment because people aren’t as conditioned to spend money given building costs.”The buyers were a young family whose children placed the winning bids on behalf of their father overseas. The direct underbidders were a local family looking for more space.Biviano said Mount Waverley is still attracting buyers. “To a degree we’re shielded [from a softening market] because of our good school zones,” Biviano said.He said Mount Waverley Secondary was one of the top government schools in Victoria. “That always helps,” he said.Elsewhere, a brick home on a big block in Diamond Creek sold for $840,000 to a young family planning to rebuild.The three-bedroom property at 12 Gregg Street was listed with a price guide of $720,000 to $790,000. The reserve was set at $790,000.There were four bidders, including three young couples and a developer. Bidding opened at $720,000 from the crowd and went up in $10,000 and $5,000 increments during a nine-minute auction.Alvy Buffon from Morrison Kleeman said the campaign was “picture-perfect”.“It was an exceptional result given the uncertainty in the real estate market at the moment,” Buffon said.The buyers, a young couple who recently sold in Hurstbridge, plan to expand and restore the property for their growing children. The immediate underbidders were another young couple.“The house was rather dilapidated, but the attraction was the expansive block of land, 920 square metres with a house that lent itself to restoration, renovation, or extension,” Buffon said.The home’s position, one block behind the main shopping strip and train station, was a selling point.“Diamond Creek is popular because it’s still reasonably priced. It is a reasonably flat suburb. It has a train station. It has really good schools... So it’s a very popular area for tradesmen and young families,” Buffon said.A home in Williamstown sold under the hammer for $1.28 million, with the owners planning to knock it down.The two-bedroom home at 6 Alma Terrace was listed with a price guide of $1.3 million to $1.4 million. The reserve was set at $1.2 million.Bidding opened at $1.2 million, and the successful buyers, a young family with primary school-aged children who were relocating, plan to demolish it and rebuild.The underbidders, another young family with primary school-aged kids from Altona, were hoping to renovate.Ray White Williamstown director Joanne Royston said the home’s lack of strict heritage restrictions made it a blank canvas.“This home was not a period home, which is rare for Williamstown. You don’t get those opportunities where you can either do a renovation or demolish,” Royston said.Royston said that the property’s location near St Mary’s Primary School, local shops, and the Strand waterfront was a major drawcard.She said the softening market had led to more pre-auction sales. “If we are getting a good, strong offer prior to a scheduled auction, we are encouraging our vendors to take it,” Royston said.PRD Real Estate chief economist Dr Diaswati Mardiasmo said the steady cash rate has given buyers a temporary confidence boost to enter the market.“Some banks are predicting there might be another cash rate hike towards the back end of 2026, and so this is the time for us to get into the market,” Mardiasmo said.However, the federal budget restricted investor tax benefits to new builds, keeping some traditional buyers away from typical auction stock.“Most of the stock that is put on auction is not a new build, they’re mostly established homes or second-hand, which is why investors are still staying away from the auction market at the moment,” she said.Property listingsFrom our partners