Ash Barty, Michael Rowland and an ‘affordable’ $6.5m house: Melbourne’s wildest auctions of 2025.

Property listings
From the $6.51 million Toorak house dubbed “affordable” to the Brighton mansion that lost $1 million in value, Melbourne’s auction market had a rollercoaster year in 2025.

The auction clearance rate strengthened and peaked in early spring and then eased back, in line with the optimism – followed by pessimism – about the outlook for interest rate relief. Property values in Melbourne rose 4.2 per cent over the year to November, settling at a median value of $823,495, on Cotality data.

First home buyers were some of the biggest winners this year, as the federal government expanded its 5% Deposit Scheme to include all buyers, regardless of income, as well as increasing the eligible property price caps to $950,000 in Melbourne.

The year began with high hopes of interest rate cuts following 13 consecutive rate hikes over 2022 and 2023.

But the prestige market, usually untouched by the problems of everyday Australia, experienced some bumps at the tail end of peak interest rates. A Brighton home located on one of the suburb’s coveted Golden Mile streets sold for $8.5 million after auction in February, after selling for $9.5 million the previous year.

In luxurious South Yarra, former tennis player Ash Barty failed to sell her townhouse at auction after it passed in at $1.85 million. In nearby St Kilda East, a four-bedroom home located near Chapel Street failed to sell at auction after its only bidder did not show up.

A Kew vendor, who purchased a five-bedroom house in late 2022 for $6 million, sold it after auction for $5.78 million. Marshall White’s Daniel Bradd said the higher sale had been at the tail end of the COVID-affected property market, and that the vendors were “understanding the market is the market.”

But not everyone was as unlucky. When the Reserve Bank delivered the first rate cut in February, to 4.1 per cent, it allowed buyers to borrow and spend more money, and boosted confidence that more cuts would follow.

First home buyers spent $1,477,000 on a Doncaster East family home in a marathon battle of the debutants in March. In Middle Park, six downsizers competed for a $2.85 million single-level Edwardian.

Six bidders fought tooth and nail for a 115-year-old Brunswick house, purchased in 1910 for 89 pounds and five shillings and still in its (largely) original condition, paying just above $1 million in April for the keys to the boarded-up, graffiti-covered property.

The second cash rate cut was in May and by June, buyers were out in full swing. A young couple forked out $1,025,000 for an architecturally designed, two-bedroom apartment in Collingwood resembling a lamington – so-called due to its unique form and brown-red-brown colouring.

A few days after the third cash rate reduction in August, a young family paid $200,000 above the reserve for a four-bedroom period home in Essendon.

Meanwhile in Toorak, a local investor got a $6.51 million bargain on a mostly original, three-bedroom house with two covenants on title that restricted development on the site.

“It’s affordable, absolutely, for this area, but it is limited as well,” said Kay & Burton selling agent and auctioneer Scott Patterson at the time, after adjusting price expectations down from his initial thoughts due to the covenants.

In North Melbourne, three bidders fought for a pub conversion, paying $1,016,000.

The monthly auction clearance rate peaked in September at 69.3 per cent on Domain data. But the hope of further rate cuts evaporated through the rest of the year due to a resurgence in inflation, dashing the hopes of both sellers and buyers looking to capitalise on lower interest rates.

In October, three of the five Daylesford homes taken to auction on reality renovation TV show The Block sold under the hammer and two passed in.

November was a more sombre month, and the monthly auction clearance rate fell to 63.4 per cent in Melbourne, as potential property buyers worried about the risk of future interest rate rises.

The Victorian government also announced this month it would introduce new laws requiring real estate agents to publish a home’s genuine reserve price at least seven days before listing a home for sale in a bid to tackle underquoting.

Long-time proponent John Keating, of Keatings Real Estate, routinely publishes auction reserve prices, including for a Woodend home scheduled for a late November auction. The first bid of $680,000 passed the reserve price ($675,000), and it sold for $783,000.

A warehouse-style West Melbourne apartment with an advertised reserve price sold at auction for $1.02 million, $170,000 over its reserve.

A young family paid $2.47 million for the keys to journalists Michael Rowland and Nicola Webber’s Yarraville home, netting the couple $180,000 above reserve.

With rates on hold for the forseeable future, Cotality’s Tim Lawless predicts lower to mid-market homes will remain the strongest segment of the market, bolstered by record housing unaffordability, which experts expect to keep rising in 2026.