The ad had been up for less than a few hours when real estate agent Nathan Brown began fielding calls from prospective buyers.
There wasn't even a 'For Sale' sign in the ground yet.
Will the owners take offers before auction? How quickly can we come and see the house?
Most of the callers had missed out on the home of their dreams over and over and over again.
But they would have to wait, Nathan told them. The vendors wanted to see how much interest the place gets first.
And being a stand-alone three-bedder listed for just under $700,000 in the northern Geelong suburb of Bell Post Hill, the interest was likely to be high.
At the beginning of 2020, speculation about a housing crash fuelled hope in first home buyers that they could, finally, get a foot in the market.
But that swell of expectation came crashing down as the record-setting market of the past two years further exacerbated the dividing line of home ownership in Australia.
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said in the year to January, Australia saw the fastest annual pace of growth since 1989.
"Over the past five years, regional Victoria has shown a much stronger rate of growth, with housing values up 51.6 per cent, compared with a 20.3 per cent lift in Melbourne housing values," Mr Lawless said.
In the past year, house prices in major cities continued to grow, with Sydney jumping 25 per cent and Melbourne 15.4 per cent, but regional areas caught up.
In the three months to March, housing values in regional Australia increased at more than three times the speed of all capital cities combined.
The median home price in the regional Victorian city of Geelong rose from $626,000 to almost $799,000 — on par with the median price in Greater Melbourne.
In some Geelong suburbs, prices rose by 30 per cent, creating new million-dollar markets.
In the region's north, an area typically known for cheap housing, median prices climbed 26 per cent. There are now no suburbs in Geelong with a median price below $500,000.
First impressions are everything
The first few couples roll by the one-storey weatherboard just before 11am, slowing down to get a peek at the place from the roadside.
Front yard, backyard, three bedrooms and a lemon tree growing below the living room window on a quiet, tree-lined street.
Inside, Nathan and his assistant Olivia switch on every light and open every door and window.
"Light and bright," Nathan says as he lights a candle and turns on his bluetooth speaker in the kitchen.
"A bit of ambience. I want it to feel like people have lived in it, I want to replicate that a young family has lived here, without them being here."
Most buyers will be in the house for less than five minutes, Nathan says, so first impressions are everything.
As a line of interested buyers grows on the pavement, homeowners Jackson and Emma pack their car and head to another open home — a mansion, they say, in the new million-dollar Fyansford estate a few kilometres away.
"It's just to look, we could never afford it," Emma says.
Just before they head out the door she tells Nathan to make sure the backdoor is wedged open.
"It creaks."
They bought in Bell Post Hill six years ago for $390,000, back when Geelong was rarely looked at by those outside the town and the average price across the whole region was about $461,000.
Over the next few years, subdivisions, supermarkets and SUVs took over more and more farmland in Geelong's south, then in 2020 it "went bananas", Jackson says.
Homes surrounding theirs sold for $600,000, then $650,000, then $700,000, until the smartest thing to do was to take advantage of the heat and sell themselves.
This house could work for just about anyone, Nathan says, a first home buyer or a small family or an investor. It might appeal to people from Melbourne because it's just off the ring road.
"But in terms of who we want to sell to we're not too particular," Jackson says.
"Whoever has the most money," Emma says.
"It would be nice to sell to someone good for the community who won't annoy the neighbours but at the same time it is a transaction, you can't get too emotional."
The heat is dissipating, but the flames are still there
The first open home is on a humid, overcast Saturday morning. Grey clouds threaten to break open but if they do, Nathan says, at least he'll know who the serious buyers are.
"Anyone who's coming out to brave the weather means they are particularly interested, your numbers get a lot less but your quality is a lot better," he says.
Nathan has been selling homes in Geelong for only three years but says 2021 was madness.
He remembers when it began: November 2020, when the ring of steel around Melbourne which for so long had prevented people from leaving the city, was opened, cashed-up buyers flooded regional Victoria for freedom.
His open homes went from having two or three groups wandering through, to 15 to 20 groups every weekend.
"It was literally like the floodgates opening up overnight. Prices were literally going up by $5,000 to $7,000 a month," he said.
Real estate agents who have been in the game for decades all agree: 2021 was nuts.
He sold houses within hours: the fastest within three for $400,000 above asking.
The heat is dissipating, but the flames are still there, Nathan says.
The craziest thing he's seen is the letters; love letters sent to him from buyers hoping to sway vendors into accepting their offer.
Nathan thought it would just be a one-off, but then more poured in.
Letters from people describing their dismay at missing out on so many other properties, letters from families saying they were about to be kicked out of their rental, letters asking for help to get into an ever-tightening market.
He never passed them on.
Nathan walks back inside to do the final checks on the house before meeting buyers on the driveway.
"This house could work for just about anyone," Nathan says.
And it does.
Eleven groups come through the house on the first open day: couples, small families, investors, even neighbours wanting to nosy at what this place had compared to theirs.
The first couple walk up the driveway bang on 11am. The second and third couples file in one after the other.
By 11:01am, four couples are inside checking floorboards, opening cupboard doors, and taking videos of the space to remind themselves later of what it looked like.
By 11:03am seven groups have been through.
A couple in their 40s who live in Geelong's north have been trying to buy for three months.
They were forced to up their budget by $70,000. They can't go any higher, they say. And they're hoping the market doesn't either.
"It's pretty nice," the man says, scanning the large front windows.
"But it's a tough market," the woman says.
"Everything is selling so quick."
An older woman called Rosemary arrives with her daughter-in-law Sheree, who already owns two homes in Geelong, both bought at auction.
She goes into each auction with three prices: a best-case scenario, what she thinks it's worth, and her final cut off.
"So I can walk away and not regret it," Sheree says.
Rosemary, who recently went through a divorce, needs to move from the Macedon Ranges to Geelong to be closer to her son.
"Now I've got to set myself up," she says. She never thought she would be in the position of needing to buy another home.
Three years ago, Nathan says, you would have been laughed at for thinking you could sell a house in Bell Post Hill for more than half a million dollars.
"Now, that's normal, totally normal."
It's a slice of normality couple Jessie and James are all too familiar with.
They moved to Geelong from Melbourne a decade ago and have been trying to buy since late last year when they were finally pre-approved for a loan.
But the steady stream of investment from Melbourne and Sydney quickly smothered their excitement and replaced it with the realisation they would need to add $50,000 to their budget.
"Disheartening" is how they describe the process.
"You have a budget and then every few months it blows up. We're chasing the tail of the property market," James says.
If they are priced out of Bell Post Hill they'll just go back to Melbourne where they work, they say, and try for an apartment.
"We don't want to, we want a house," Jessie says.
The day of the auction is exactly what Nathan was hoping for: blue skies, a slight breeze, and dozens of people lining the road and footpath for the drama of the sale.
His speaker blares out a remix of Gnarls Barkley 'Crazy', a coffee van supplied by the agency gives out free hot drinks and doughnuts.
Almost 60 people have turned up, five groups have officially registered as bidders. Jessie and James are there, people from surrounding streets who received a letter in the mail from Barry Plant inviting them along have come out for the drama.
Just after 11am, Nathan hushes the crowd, explains the eight rules of an auction and reiterates there will be no cooling-off period: if you bid and win you've bought the place, no turning back.
He reels off the advantages of the suburb: a childcare centre around the corner, a primary school and a high school just up the road.
"Even if you don't have children, think of the resale value," he says.
Across the road, a man named Neil watches on bewildered. He's lived in his house since 1975 and paid $22,500 for it.
The neighbour on his right bought the land for just $10,000.
"Interest rates were 15 per cent mind you," Neil says. But he still has a hard time wrapping his head around the upsurge in the popularity of his quiet little suburb.
But back across the road, as the bidding starts, there's silence.
Nathan repeats himself: "Can I see $620,000?"
Nothing. Nathan remains calm, getting the first bid is the hardest part.
"I get paid by the hour I can be here all day. $620,000 in the crowd, 620 anyone. Remember where we are folks, 630 square metres, it's going for $1,000 per square metre right now and that's just the land."
People look around at each other wondering who will stick a hand in the air until a man with a white beard and dark sunglasses tips a finger up and offers $620,000 on behalf of Jessie and James.
Inside, Jackson and Emma try to stay calm, try to dampen the expectations they had less than five minutes ago.
Then, it seems, the bidding takes off. Another bidder offers $630,000, the man with the white beard goes to $640,000.
Then it stops. It's not enough so Jackson and Emma put in a vendor bid of $650,000.
Nathan is now looking for $660,000 but there's just more silence and glances between couples.
The crowd doesn't budge.
Nathan walks inside and walks out less than a minute later and tells the crowd the reserve is $660,000.
The man bidding for Jessie and James, the only active bidder left, shakes his head. They'll go as high as $642,000, no more.
After three weeks of a campaign with intense interest, the house is passed in, a "clear sign" the market is cooling, Nathan says.
But as the crowd begins to disperse, a young couple who live in a rental around the corner and had only come along to watch, walk up and say, subject to finance, they can offer $660,000.
A flurry of discussion takes place. Emma is on the phone, Jackson is on the phone, someone offers Emma a doughnut: "I'm not hungry," she says.
The buyers stand out the back negotiating dates with Nathan and looking around at the property for the first time. They had missed out on so many times they had almost given up hope and came to the auction purely out of interest. When bids failed to eventuate, they saw an opportunity.
Inside, Emma and Jackson breathe a sigh of relief even if it wasn't exactly what they were hoping for.
"It goes to show that's what the market was doing, for now at least, it seems to change every week," Jackson says.
Nathan walks away happy, $660,000 is a good result in a market that's tapering off.
But it won't go backwards and a few days later, a homeowner who was at the auction gives him a ring: they want to sell.
