Bidders love for bold Geelong renovation rewards sellers
The four-bedroom residence at 128 Verner St, Geelong sparked an auction battle between two bidders that finished $45,000 above the initial price hopes of $1.1m to $1.2m.
Gartland, Geelong agent Will Ainsworth said the house impressed the bidders and also had plenty of neighbours mulling their own renovations looking for inspiration.
The 337sq m property sold for $1.245m at Saturday's auction.
The weatherboard facade was about that was worth saving when the vendors first came across the house in 2018.
But after a stylish renovation and extension, the owners and their family have enjoyed the fruits of their labour, working with Geelong Building Company to transform the home.
The rebuild included restumping and salvaged character features such as double-hung windows and timber floorboards.
The addition of a new open-plan living space at the rear is the game-changer, connecting the three-bedroom home to a private decked outdoor entertainment area and compact garden with convenient back lane access.
'For a house with no off-street parking and almost backing on to the railway line it's a pretty good result,' Mr Ainsworth said.
The two groups that fought for the property clearly fell in love with it, he said.
'I guess you can do your mutual-type renovation and hope to appease more people, but that doesn't add the element of scarcity to it.
'This one really set these two groups off in particular, it was a great one.
'We had so many people come through who are thinking of renovating, or neighbours that have been watching them do it over the years.
'We just got so many compliments to the vendors for the good work they've done and the bold ideas they put in place.'
Mr Ainsworth said the property centre is the heart of the action, with GMHBA Stadium, the Barwon River and central Geelong all close by.
'Verner St has really come of age. Selling properties there 10 years ago had a little bit of a stigma to it about not being the best part of town. But you put a Verner St address on the market and certainly people's ears prick up.
'And when you get houses like this and over the last 10 years you've gone from a lot of old, unrenovated houses like this, that helps bring the street up.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
5 minutes ago
- ABC News
Legs of lamb almost double in price at supermarkets amid drought
The price of a leg of lamb in supermarkets has almost doubled in the past 18 months, as a drought ravaging southern Australia squeezes supply. Successive lamb price records have tumbled at the saleyards since late May, with eye-watering prices driven by frenzied bidding for top-quality fat lambs. As the costs are passed on at the retail level, shoppers are choosing cheaper alternatives like chicken and pork. A leg of lamb is selling for $13 per kilo at Coles and Woolworths, up from $8 per kilo in the major supermarkets in January 2024. Chops are now $21 per kilo at Coles, up from $12.50 just 18 months ago. Smeaton mother and community cook Rachael Yeo said despite lamb being her favourite meat, it was no longer a regular staple on her dinner table. "It's too expensive and chicken is a lot cheaper, we can buy good quality free range chicken for a really good price so we opt for that now." Agricultural market analyst Matt Dalgleish said the retail price of lamb followed the trend at the saleyards. "Saleyard pricing of lamb nationally over the last year has gone up by about 32 per cent," he said. But butcher Justin Casham, from Colac in south-west Victoria, said it was difficult to pass that cost on to consumers. "I simply know we're not making enough out of lamb. "Only four or five weeks ago we simply couldn't get enough racks or cutlets but that's stopped, people aren't paying for it anymore." Mr Cashman said he was selling a leg of lamb for $15.90 per kilo, but that price was a tough ask for many families. "Our poultry sales have probably increased 30 per cent in the past couple of weeks and our pork numbers are also up," he said. Mr Cashman said the trend was evident in hospitality as well, with restaurants sourcing alternative meats. "[Our customers] in the restaurant trade are putting cheaper things on the menu to try and entice people in the door," he said. Red meat sales have declined recently at Ritchies IGA stores, according to chief executive Fred Harrison. "Red meat is generally perceived as pricey," Mr Harrison said. "People might be buying more beef mince, which is a cheaper cut of product. "At Ritchies we're currently looking at around $15.99 per kilo mark for a leg of lamb, but we also run promotions quite often at about $11 per kilo." He said lamb as a roast still represented good value. "But when you start getting to cutlets, they are quite expensive on a per kilo basis and to try and feed a family you could be up for a lot of money," Mr Harrison said. Supermarkets can keep their prices lower than butchers by offsetting losses on certain cuts of meat to other products, because of their larger economies of scale. "You have to walk all the way to the back of the store to the meat aisle, and on the way you might pick up five or six other items, so there is a sales strategy there," Mr Dalgleish said. "It makes it tough for independent butchers. "I think we will eventually see this high price [in the saleyards] flow through to the retailers, absolutely." A Coles spokesperson said there was still strong overall demand for lamb with some customers "looking for value and others opting for more premium cuts rather than eating out". "We're always looking for opportunities to deliver value on top-quality Australian lamb, and other meat, for our customers, while also supporting fair prices for farmers," a Woolworths spokesperson said. Australia's sheep flock is shrinking, with numbers expected to stay low until at least 2027. Lamb prices are expected to remain high until the flock recovers from the drought. "If the drought is to continue for another six or nine months, then it will have a longer-term impact on the quality, but currently the [quality reduction] is only minimal," Mr Harrison said. Mr Dalgleish said lamb prices would continue to rise.
ABC News
5 minutes ago
- ABC News
Markets live: ASX to recover, Nvidia and tech slump drags Wall Street lower
The Australian share market is likely to edge higher despite a sell-off across Nvidia and other US tech stocks overnight. In economic news, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is widely expected to deliver another interest rate cut amid slowing economic growth and rising unemployment. See how the trading day unfolds on our blog. Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Drill to Kill: How Ballard plans to grow its already bountiful Mt Ida gold project
WA's gold fields have plenty more large scale discoveries to be made With Ballard Mining's advanced 930,000oz Baldock deposit and 26km of largely unexplored greenstone, its Mt Ida project has potential to upsize 130,000m of drilling planned after $30m IPO and spinoff from lithium junior Delta Lithium Is the Western Australia's gold scene too drilled out for world class discoveries, or is that fear just a crisis of imagination? Recent developments in WA's gold sector show discoveries can deliver over and over again. De Grey Mining's 11.2Moz Hemi gold discovery near Port Hedland put the cat among the pigeons. And since that 2020 find, which turned the minnow into a $6bn takeover prey for Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST), well-trodden turf across the state has delivered revelations. Spectrum Metals, Musgrave Minerals and Spartan Resources have all posted high-grade gold discoveries in the Mid West that sit within the portfolio of Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS). Spartan's 2.3Moz Never Never and Pepper deposits were located just 1km from its processing plant in the mature Dalgaranga gold field. Former De Grey chair Simon Lill, now the chair of WA gold explorers Ballard Mining (ASX:BM1) and Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI), says the geos at De Grey were confident another orebody of the scale of Hemi is lurking somewhere in the WA outback. "It's amazing that most of Australia's still under cover, really. And as they're getting better at techniques of looking beneath the cover they're starting to find more materials," he said at the Diggers and Dealers mining forum in Kalgoorlie this month. Other mines which once had short lives have been shown to go on, seemingly, forever – think Northern Star's Super Pit, Jundee and Carosue Dam, Ramelius' Checkers, Catalyst Metals' (ASX:CYL) Plutonic and Westgold Resources ' (ASX:WGX) Big Bell. Those success stories open a tantalising window into a possible future for the ASX's newest WA gold explorer Ballard and its 1.1Moz Mt Ida gold project. Mt Ida includes 930,000oz at 4.1g/t alone at the Baldock deposit, a potential open pit that forms the basis of a future mining hub, drilled before the company's spin-off from Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI). "We've got 1Moz here already without really trying, and it's still just scratching the surface, so who knows how big that can become," Lill said. "Some of the discoveries from the '80s that Ed Eshuys was involved with, they're still mining. "At the time, they got up and operating on a seven-year mine life. They're still operating." The potential Tasked with bringing that vision to life is managing director Paul Brennan, a veteran of WA's Goldfields. He was the general manager of Carosue Dam for Saracen Mineral Holdings when the mine poured its millionth ounce of gold. It's still going strong eight years on. "One of my favourite sayings is the best spot to find a new mine is at an existing mine," Brennan said. "When I was there, we went through this organic shift from open pit mining to underground mining. "And then once we actually got underground and established some underground diamond drill positions, we were able to drill from a position that was favourable to the resource rather than drilling Hail Mary's from surface, which are very expensive. "Those orebodies just continue to grow. "Karari and (Whirling) Dervish still underpin Carosue Dam's production." Ballard is uniquely placed to make those additional discoveries early. Armed with $30m in fresh capital from its July IPO, the high-powered junior is already trading well above the offer price at 45c and is using that cash to fund two distinct drill drives. Newly listed and with four rigs already on the ground, around 100km west of the Goldfields town of Leonora, one is an 80,000m program to infill and expand Baldock and the other a 50,000m program to make new discoveries across 26km of largely untested greenstone hosted shear zones. "Baldock, we've only really drilled it down to 350 metres, so there's certainly opportunity to extend that at depth," Brennan said. "But we want to hunt it along strike first just to find the edges. " And then secondly, the exploration drilling – this is probably a little bit different from Saracen in that there's a genuine underexplored nature at Mount Ida, 26 kilometres of prospective greenstone with an average drill hole depth of 40 metres. "Something like only 670 holes have been drilled at Mount Ida since Baldock was discovered in 2001." Majors on board The nature of Ballard's journey to the ASX means it has a uniquely powerful register for a new explorer. Delta itself controls around 46% of the stock, with legacy DLI investors Hancock Prospecting and Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) rounding out the top 3. Japanese trading house Idemitsu is there as well, along with well known Aussie funds Nero Resources Fund, Precision Funds Management and Argonaut, and former Northern Star Resources boss Bill Beament. International instos IFM and 1832 Asset Management are on board as well, a huge fillip for Ballard when it does come time to raise capital to develop the Baldock mine. "We've been very fortunate to attract that calibre (of investor) and knowing that they'll be there in a couple of years' time when we hopefully do look to build it. You'd expect there to be supportive shareholders," Brennan said. Exploration focus Ballard sits in an enviable position, and stands as a logical M&A prospect either in concert with the privately owned Aurenne Group's Mt Ida project just 6km to the south or a larger player further a field like Ora Banda (ASX:OBM) or Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD). But Brennan says the focus is not on an endgame. "We're all friends, we all know each other. There'll be just ongoing casual chats in that space ... as good neighbours do. But you've got to be in control of your own destiny. Hope is not a strategy," he said. Rather, the big prize is seeing how substantial Ballard can make its Mt Ida deposits, and what might be lurking at up to 20 prospects already identified across the vast tract of greenstone under the company's control. Alongside its strong register, Ballard's battle hardened board brings with it a wealth of experience operating in WA's gold sector. With Brennan is non-exec chair Lill, fresh from his success at De Grey, along with former Ramelius Resources CFO Tim Manners as finance director and Delta MD James Croser as a non-executive director. The other non-exec director, and one of two independent directors with Lill, is Stuart Mathews, recently retired from his role as Australasian head of Gold Fields, one of the world's biggest gold miners. "He's used to looking at big camp-scale projects, big exploration budgets," Brennan said. "Our two independent non-execs, they're both suggesting that we just need to understand how big this thing is or potentially could be, before we start betting down flow sheets and production rates and start talking about feasibility studies." Drill to kill Brennan says the aim is to "drill to kill". "Someone said to me a couple of weeks ago, you've got to take the pharmaceutical approach and just drill to kill," he said. "And if you can't kill it, there's an orebody there. "We've got 18 to 20 identified prospects to make our way through. "The early results have been encouraging but I'd like to think we're going to be reasonably mercenary about how we go about this exploration drilling. "We're not worried about trying to keep ourselves gainfully employed for the next five years. We just want to get on with it and we've got the money in the bank to do that." The understated upside for Ballard is how simple its permitting will be, in a world where that aspect of mine building is getting more arduous and costly by the day. Its assets sit on granted mining leases with no native title concerns. And BM1 has already submitted a works approval application to approve a 1.5Mtpa carbon in leach processing plant and tailings facility ahead of mining and environmental studies. "That's been a sort of six to eight month process. We're nearly there. If we want to go back to DWER (WA's Department of Water and Environmental Regulation) and amend that, maybe that's a three or four month exercise. So we're quietly derisking the project in the background." With Baldock's advanced nature, the geology is also at a far more progressed state than you'd expect from an $82m capped explorer. "We see Baldock providing the first five or six years of the mine life. And then what we're trying to achieve with the exploration drilling is you start to get visibility over the production years six to 10," Brennan said. "That's the benchmark for building an operation of standalone scale."
