DIY Cooley Auctions beckons Sydney's probably passionate Valentine's weekend auctions

Leading Sydney auctioneer Damien Cooley's own Sydney home in Naremburn sold at Friday night auction, kicking off the weekend with a bullish result.

His auctioneer brother, Andrew Cooley from Cooley Auctions, knocked down the Darvall Street house (pictured) at $1,707,000 after the Chinese/Australian underbidder unexpectedly declined the chance to go to $1,708,000.

Damien and his wife Peppi paid $775,000 for the corner home, renovating, extending and building up, so they had confident $1.4 million plus hopes.

The neighbours - and there must have been 150 plus at the onsite auction - had told Property Observer pre-auction that $1.6 million plus was in the neighbourhood's expectation. Bidding started at $1.2 million, with the second bid at $1.6 million, showing the firmness of buying intent. There were the three major bidders in the running from then onwards. 

The current Naremburn median is $1.26 million, according to RP Data.

It was sold by conjunctional agents, the LJ Hooker Willoughby agent John McManus and Peter Chauncey at McGrath who had more than 250 groups through during the marketing campaign and issued 30 plus contracts. 

Sydney will have 470 auctions this weekend - some 200 more than the same weekend a year ago. Next weekend is a record 770 for a February Saturday.

Australian Property Monitors says the inner west is the most active region with 74 auctions followed by the upper north shore with 69, the south with 68 and the city and east with upper north shore with 61 auctions scheduled.

APM senior economist Dr Andrew Wilson says Beecroft and Eastwood on the upper north shore are the most popular suburbs for auctions each with eight listings.

Redfern is next with seven, followed by Birchgrove and then Epping, Ryde and St Ives each with six scheduled auctions.

Last weekend there were 296 auctions and 90 odd in the first weekend back in February.

So far this year the weekend clearance rate has been 77% and the preliminary 84% from last Saturday.

The year's success rate sits almost 20 percentage points higher than the 62 per cent recorded over the same time last February.

The top performing regions last weekend were the northern beaches and Canterbury Bankstown, each with 100 per cent clearance rates.

Last weekend's dearest was 6 Long St, Strathfield, a four bedroom house sold at $2,280,000.

The weekend's cheapest was at Arncliffe, when the one bedroom ground floor unit at 2/1 Stanley Street sold pre-auction for $285,000.