Prestige Real Estate Brighton Agency faces the difficulty of marketing the Collingwood AFL captain’s house
We speak to the team behind last week’s most intriguing property sale.
The property: A four-bedroom, four-bathroom house with large studio above a double garage at Addison Street, Elwood, Victoria. Sold by private sale for $6.5 million.
Who was the agent/agency? Joel Fredman, Fredman. Vendors Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury and his wife, Alex Pendlebury.
The side view: Marketing material highlighted the side of Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury’s house, rather than the street frontage, to protect the family’s privacy.
How long was this on the market? [Fredman] It was about six or seven weeks.
Why did this one sell? Because it’s a standout property and it’s a difficult one to replace. You won’t be able to find it again.
Was it overpriced? No.
What did you think it would go for? I can’t comment on the sale price. I thought it would go for about $6 million.
What was surprising about it?
When you’re keeping things as private as possible, sometimes you wonder whether you are finding absolutely everyone you need to engage with.
Alex and Scott Pendlebury and their children celebrate his 350th Collingwood game during the round 18 AFL match between the Adelaide Crows and the Collingwood Magpies last month. Getty
You’re focusing on a very specific group of people who happen to be active at the time and you hope that those are the best possible people for the house. You’re trying to create maximum competition with very few people. That was quite tricky.
We didn’t use a large “hero” shot of the front of the house. They didn’t particularly want everyone knowing what it looked like from the street for privacy purposes.
Long time, slow market: the four-bedroom, four-bathroom house with studio above a double garage sold after seven weeks on market for $6.5 million.
Initially, we did try to keep things private. We tried to keep the address private. We would only bring a handful of people through.
We brought in a couple of agents who are local and good operators. We wanted to suss out if they had clients who might be interested as we could try to create competition that way.
You can’t give the market a sniff you’re trying to move it urgently, particularly if you come to the end of a campaign.
— Agent Joel Fredman
The numbers were pretty low. There aren’t that many people who have $6 million-plus to spend in Elwood. We always kept the viewings private, but we did step up the marketing process to make sure we were finding new people.
When you have an asset like this, a unique price and not much to compare with, it’s a matter of holding your ground and waiting for buyers to reach out to you.
You try to create some urgency with the expressions of interest campaign, but if you don’t get there … you can’t give the market a sniff you’re trying to move it urgently, particularly if you come to the end of an expressions of interest campaign. We said: “We’ll wait.”
Did you have any bargain hunters?
I did have a couple of people. They were nowhere near what we were looking at. You have people who see value at a much lower level. You obviously give them the time of day, but you’re not going to give them a sniff.
When it works, it works brilliantly. When it doesn’t sell you have to have a protective process to convert it from there. We actually converted the campaign into a private sale. It was very much a matter of “wait and see who contacts us”.
Did you have to reassure your clients?
We said: “Just sit tight. We’re waiting for the right buyer.” Lo and behold, it was a couple of weeks after the EOI, we had a few new inquiries and booked them in and there we go.
But we did have to choose – do you make the decision to go with the bird in hand, when we know we’ve got the sale? Or do we keep those buyers engaged, keep them warm and see what happens? Thank God we did.
Do you reckon we’ll see another result like this: a) next week b) next year c) next cycle d) never?
- d) Never. It’ll be a difficult one to replicate – I’m not sure when that will happen.