A five-bedroom Federation home in Essendon, known as Iverley, sold on Saturday for $2,375,000 under the hammer as three bidders fought it out at auction.

A local family made a bold $10,000 bid to knock out the competition for 45 Clarinda Road, which overlooks Clarinda Park. Iverley sold between its $2.2 million to $2.4 million guide, and above its $2.35 million reserve.

The property was one of 570 scheduled to go to auction in Melbourne last week. By Saturday evening, Domain Group recorded a preliminary auction clearance rate of 57 per cent from 392 reported results throughout the week, while 61 auctions were withdrawn. Withdrawn auctions are counted as unsold properties when calculating the clearance rate.

Agents say the market is showing some signs of warming up, though the usually booming spring market is unlikely to be as active as in the past.

Buyers and sellers are waiting for news on interest rates, after the Reserve Bank kept the cash rate on hold last week but Governor Michele Bullock warned another rise may be needed to quell inflation. Some people are also waiting for the outcome of Victoria’s November election.

Nelson Alexander’s Ryan Currie said the Essendon auction was held in front of about 80 people.

Bidding opened at $2 million, with the property called on the market once offers reached the reserve of $2.35 million. Once bidding reached $2,365,000, the buyers made a final $10,000 offer to win the keys.

The sale was emotional for the vendors, who had owned the property for 30 years and raised their two daughters there. They plan to retire to Ocean Grove.

Currie said the market had shown signs of improvement in the past few weeks as more people showed up to open for inspections, and to auctions.

“It’s good to see some competition,” he said.

The spring market was looking a lot more sparse than it had over the past couple of years, Currie said, as buyers and sellers took a wait-and-see approach.

“It’s definitely thinner on the ground – for family homes especially,” Currie said. “It seems to be the investor, townhouse and single-fronted stock coming up.

“Some vendors are wanting to just wait and see what happens after the election. I’ve got a number of them saying we’ll wait for the [AFL] grand final to be over and the next school holidays before making a decision.”

In Elwood, a three-bedroom Federation house at 377 Barkly Street sold for $1.55 million, after passing in at auction.

Three bidders, two of them upsizers, competed. Bidding had opened at $1.45 million, with a couple of quick bids taking it to $1.53 million before the auction stalled and the home passed in.

The buyer, an upsizer from Prahran, negotiated the sale immediately after it passed in. The property, which had been owned by the vendor since 2020, sold on its reserve of $1.55 million, and at the top end of its $1.45 million to $1.55 million guide.

The selling agent, Unreserved Lite’s Ben Williams, said he had noticed a trend among buyers over the past three to four months of letting properties pass in before negotiating the sale.

“It does feel like, though, in the past few weeks the market has been moving in a northerly direction,” Williams said.

Not too far from Elwood, in Brighton East, a three-bedroom townhouse sold under the hammer for $1,175,000 to a woman downsizing from St Kilda East.

The property, at 1A Tatong Road had three bidders competing, including two young couples, one of whom was a first home buyer.

Bidding on the property, which has a natural sandstone patio, opened at $1.05 million, with bids of $10,000 and $5000 taking the offers to its sale price.

The home sold above its guide of $1.05 million to $1.15 million and above its $1.15 million reserve.

The number of buyers and those inspecting properties had risen over the past couple of weeks, Jellis Craig Brighton’s Trent Collie said.

“That’s because there’s not a lot of stock,” he said. “Vendors are saying, ‘If we do decide to sell, what do we do because there’s not a lot for sale for us to buy?’”

He said the number of houses listed for sale in spring was well below previous years.

Some buyers had told him of their concerns about another interest rate rise, especially at the price level the Brighton East property sold for.

“They are wondering if it’s going to go up again,” Collie said.