House on Locke St. sells for $100 000 over asking price

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Despite a “technical recession” at the start of the year in Canada, the real estate boom is showing no signs of slowing down in the GTHA.  The Realtors Association of Hamilton and Burlington says a new sales record was set last month with sales up nearly 8% from the same time last year.  Also, residential homes are selling much faster, in about 36 days on average.

Now we’re hearing about another bidding war, one that earned the seller more than $100 000 over the asking price.

Neighbours don’t know what to think about the price that a Locke Street home fetched. It’s good because it increases the value of their homes but it also makes it harder and more expensive to buy a home in this area.

It is a duplex on Locke Street North across from Victoria Park and it was listed in early august at $269 000.

“We put it on at a competitive price that we knew would get action but didn’t realize the action we ended up getting.” said Derek Carter, who is an agent with Home Life Realty.

It sold a week later for a whopping $377 000.  $108 000 above asking price.

“After one week we received 20 offers on the property.”

Carter says it’s those offers that drove the price up 35% above ask, and most of the bidders were from out of town.

“Not saying it wasn’t worth what it was sold for, generally it sells for market value and what people are willing to pay. By the bulk of the offers this is what they’re willing to pay for this type of property.”

This is district 10 and Carter says aside from Westdale, this is the hottest area in Hamilton and Torontonians know it.

“They told me that they had done their homework on the area, nice park, Pier 4 within walking and riding distance and loved the location.”

John Terpstra lives down the street and has mixed feelings about the sky high selling price.

“Our own daughter and her husband ended up moving elsewhere because they couldn’t afford to buy a house in Hamilton. Hamilton always was a place where you could buy a house.”

There are plenty of houses up for grabs elsewhere in Hamilton and not all of them come with a bidding war.