Skinny Surry Hills house sells for $965,000 at auction

Sydney : A terrace in Surry Hills that is only slightly wider than a queen-sized bed fetched almost $1 million auction on Saturday.
It was one of 750 properties scheduled to go under the hammer in Sydney on Saturday.By Saturday evening Domain had collected 608 results and put the clearance rate at 84.2 per cent, slightly below last week’s 84.4 per cent.Domain Group senior economist Andrew Wilson said while it was a strong clearance rate, it was the lowest result since Easter.”We may be tracking down a little bit towards a more sane market,” he said.
The two-bedroom house, which measures 2.85 metres wide and is on a 38-square-metre block in Terry Street, sold for $965,000. While this is well below the suburb’s median house price of about $1.5 million, the sale works out at $25,395 a square metre, which would make it more expensive than many larger houses in more prestige suburbs.A house on 302 square metres in Holdsworth Street, Woollahra, sold last weekend for $3.75 million, which is just $12,417 a square metre.
The opening bid for the small home was $650,000 but competitive bidding from three keen parties saw the price surge.Some members of the crowd were shaking their heads, while others were laughing as the bids kept coming in.The winning bidder was buyer’s agent Raymond Hung, who was bidding on behalf of a client in China.
The pint-sized terrace certainly packs a lot into those 38 square metres. Two bedrooms are squeezed in upstairs, while on the ground floor are separate dining and living rooms, a small galley kitchen and a combined bathroom and laundry.You would have just enough room for a three-seat sofa in the living room, but wouldn’t want to go larger than a double bed in either bedroom if you wanted space to move.The terrace also comes with courtyard: but at about one metre wide, you would struggle to fit much furniture outside.Despite the home’s size, selling agent Annie Hodgson of First National Spencer and Servi said there had been plenty of interest before the auction.