August 31, 2026 — 11:29amFirst-home buyers paid $1.15 million for a single-fronted terrace in Brunswick East in post-auction negotiations on Saturday, as the vendors cut their reserve price to sell.The three-bedroom, two-bathroom Victorian home at 209 Glenlyon Road came with an upstairs main bedroom and en suite, an updated kitchen and a grassy backyard.The property was one of 638 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne last week. By Saturday evening, Domain recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 60 per cent from 450 reported results throughout the week, while 62 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.The Brunswick East home was listed with a price guide of $1.09 million to $1.18 million.It drew only one party at auction and one genuine bid of $1 million, which was below the bottom of the price guide. A vendor bid was then placed at $1.09 million, the lower end of the price range.But with no further bidding, the home was passed in and negotiations ensued.Barry Plant Brunswick Coburg selling agent Ben Calcagno said the vendors had set their reserve price at the top end of the range, and were hoping for $1.19 million, but also gave some negotiating room to their agents.After negotiations, the home sold to a pair of young first-home buyers for $1.15 million.“The owners were quite rapt, they were over the moon with that price,” Calcagno said. “It was on a main road, quite a busy road. It was quite a small parcel of land.”He said the new owners of the home are local and “absolutely love it, love the area”.There is no legal requirement for a vendor’s reserve to be in line with their property’s price guide.Calcogno said it was not unusual for auctions to go uncontested in this market, which has been dampened by interest rate rises, economic uncertainty and investor tax changes.“It is tough, it is really tough. It feels like for every property you will be lucky to have one genuine buyer,” he said.“What I am hearing from buyers in the marketplace is people definitely have money to spend, but they are more likely to spend it on really good quality stock.”Elsewhere, a mother bought a Glen Waverley townhouse as a surprise for her son, paying $1,718,000 at auction.The new, five-bedroom home at 7A Clivejay Street had been offered with a price guide of $1.65 million to $1.75 million.Three bidders registered for the auction, beginning at $1.6 million and rising at first in $25,000 increments to the reserve price of $1.7 million.Then a further $10,000 bid was placed, and the parties continued in $1000 rises.A woman who inspected the home for the first time that day made one bid and won the keys.“When we called the son, the son was shocked. He was very excited,” Jellis Craig Glen Waverley selling agent Tori Liu said.“You never know what is going to happen at an auction.”He said the market broadly had been a little slow but transactions were still happening, and noted the clearance rate edging up from its low of a few months ago.“A lot of vendors are starting to realise the market is changing,” he said, adding that buyers also realise they have more options and are more cautious about not bidding above their limits.Property listingsFrom our partners