ANNANDALE · OPEN HOME
68 Wells St, Annandale
The cottage facade hiding a full architectural transformation
1 October 2026
UPDATE — Passed in at Auction (Highest Bid $2.565M)
Now for Rent: $1,650 pw
18 September 2026
Unassuming designer cottage right in the beating heart of Annandale’s coffee culture.
The facade of this cottage doesn’t scream, it says, “I’m a beautifully small, well-kept, clean and crisp white cottage moments from the heart of Annandale.” Well, at least that’s what I thought when I walked past this house on my way for my usual coffee on Booth Street. But as I stood in front of the house, I noticed the extension on the side — hang on, there’s more to this.
Looking at the photos on the listing, it’s a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house. No way — behind this unassuming cottage was a 3 bedroom, architecturally renovated house. The photos are beautiful, the kitchen is stunning, and the backyard looks absolutely gorgeous. This house ticks a lot of boxes. The ground floor is the living area and it looks incredibly spacious, with the upstairs dedicated to sleeping quarters where 3 bedrooms are situated, all well proportioned. Oh, how I wish it was open now for me to inspect.
The listing says it’s up for auction this Saturday 19 September at 3pm, with inspection starting at 2:30pm. You bet I’ll be there — I want to see this beauty in person.
OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR
One of the things I love about this part of Annandale is how easily life spills onto Booth Street. From Wells Street, I can wander down, grab a coffee or a pastry and find somewhere to sit for a while. Precinct 37, Cherry Moon, The Corner Shop — there’s enough going on that I never really have a plan. I just head towards Booth Street and see where I end up.
KEEP EXPLORING — A Perfect Saturday in Annandale →
Inner West Local
Let’s talk numbers. Price is advertised at $2.38M. You can believe the guide these days — it’s truer than it was six months ago. Back then, agents were guiding at least 10% below the likely sale price just to get people through the door, and it seemed to be standard practice across the Inner West, which made the whole thing feel unreliable. So all in, we’re looking at $2.38M plus stamp duty of $113,858, which totals roughly $2.5M. That’s a pretty penny, but this is Annandale after all.
What is my estimate? Let’s look at some comps, a little research and insider knowledge before I give my estimate on this one. 66 Wells St next door sold for $2.26M recently in August, but the floor plan on paper looks inferior to 68 Wells St, with the renovation not appearing to be as well executed. Then there’s 60 Wells St, which sold for $3.25M in March 2026, well before the market took a turn. This was a restored Victorian double storey terrace, marble throughout, designed by an interior designer as her own home before she sold it. I’ve been through this home and it was beautifully curated to an inch of its life. You always know when a designer has had their hand in the pie — or shall I say, in the “house.”
I digress, back to my estimate. What I also know is that Wells Street is congested up the hill. This is one of Annandale’s best kept secrets for all-day parking if you can nab a spot — cars are parked on both sides, and the side that 68 Wells Street sits on is where cars love to park half on, half off. It’s a bit of a shit show. I was amazed that the agent had managed to take a picture of the house without any cars in front, beautifully showing off the house. Most houses along here lose their street appeal because of the infestation of cars parked along the street.
With 2 days till auction, my estimate for this house, without seeing it, is $2.30M–$2.35M. In a hotter climate this property would easily sell for $2.5M, but we’re in a different time. I’m looking forward to seeing it in real life — the photos are beautiful, and if they can create that little magic throughout the house, that’s something I can’t feel on paper that says “oh wow, I want to live here,” then they’ll have no problem getting the $2.38M+. I know Belle, and I’ve been through quite a few of Simon Azzi’s open homes — she’s a sharp operator, so I think the owners of 68 Wells St are in good hands.
More photos can be viewed on the listing details below.
Listing Details: 68 Wells St, Annandale NSW
Initial Price Guide – $2.38M
Auction – 19 September
My Estimate – $2.30M–$2.35M
Updated – 21 September 2026
Auction Day
Auction day arrived for 68 Wells St on a hot and beautiful Saturday afternoon. I casually wandered to Wells Street, keen to see the level of finish and how the property made me feel — things I couldn’t gauge from looking at listing photos alone. I was also curious to see whether I may have underestimated its value, and whether there was something that would push it above the $2.38M guide.
As I wandered through I saw how bright and airy it was, clean lines and spacious, with all 3 bedrooms offering good space, and the bathrooms, while nice, were all very white.
The selling point was the open plan living room, dining, and large kitchen, which flows effortlessly onto a beautiful lush green wall garden. This home definitely had architectural details, meticulously looked after and incredibly well presented. Fully ready for a family to move in and enjoy, without having to deal with the massive headache of a renovation that just seems to go on forever, along with the costs. This is probably the most compelling reason buyers have when buying a property — the majority of us just want a move-in ready home.
The crowd grew slowly, a quick headcount placed numbers around 40 people, not all buyers — Annandale loves a good neighbourly turnout, but with a strong contingent of agents in the mix. 12–15 were competing agents; I saw familiar faces from Adrian William, 4–5 from Bresic Whitney, and young aspiring Ray White faces.
As the auction started, no one offered the opening bid, so a vendor bid was placed at $2.4M — already 8% above the guide. A young couple offered a $10k bid but it wasn’t accepted, only increments of $50k, she said. Then another young guy, with his father in tow, bid $2.45M, and the young couple came back with $2.5M. Bidding slowed to $25K increments, then $10K, as the auctioneer worked the two remaining bidders. It was evident there were only 2 bidders, and bidding continued slowly, punctuated by consultation between the agent and the vendor, before the final bid landed at $2.565M and the property passed in.
Let’s talk numbers again. I was a little surprised that the property passed in at $2.565M — a clear indication that the vendor rejected the market’s highest offer. A $2.38M guide followed by a vendor bid at $2.4M is cheeky but not enormous by itself. The larger issue is that the seller apparently would not accept $2.565M. If the genuine seller expectation was always above that, then the guide was at least:
$185,000 below the highest rejected bid, and
probably more than $200,000 below the reserve.
The technical defence will be that the vendor independently set the reserve on auction day. But from a buyer’s perspective, it means the advertised number never represented a realistic purchasing opportunity.
I speculated for some time why they rejected the offer. It was $305k above its next-door neighbour at 66 Wells St — both are on the same street, almost the same land size, with the same bedroom count and no parking. Then I remembered, this one has the same selling agent as 60 Wells St, which sold in March this year for a premium $3.25M asking price on an off-market, social-media-driven listing. On paper, 60 Wells St is only another small 3 bedroom, two-bathroom house without parking. Yet it sold:
-
$990,000 above 66 Wells St
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$685,000 above the rejected highest bid for 68 Wells St
That premium cannot be explained by an extra bedroom, bathroom, parking, or land. It is overwhelmingly a design, scarcity, and status premium. The Belle campaign does not sell bedrooms and bathrooms. It sells provenance, authorship, and connoisseurship. A buyer could say, “I own the award-recognised house from Belle and The Local Project.” That is entirely different from saying, “I bought a nicely renovated terrace.”
And here’s the kicker — I walked through 60 Wells St and can remember it quite vividly; it was impossible not to. I can barely remember 68 Wells St without my notes and photos, because it resembled every current sage-and-neutral renovation. 60 Wells St has an unmistakable identity. Only one buyer had to love that identity, and one did. At 68 Wells Street, the architecture delivered a roughly $300k premium over 66 Wells St, but it did not produce enough desire to clear the reserve. At 60 Wells St, design authorship and publicity generated an entirely different class of buyer. My personal opinion, and nothing I can prove, is that 60 Wells St probably cast a long shadow over the 68 Wells St campaign. The vendor could easily think, “The same agent sold a small, no-parking, three-bedroom house six doors away for $3.25M. Mine is also architect-designed, so it must be worth well above $2.6M.”
It didn’t. Buyers drew a much larger distinction. Buyers did not regard a spotless contemporary renovation as equivalent to a published designer’s own award-recognised home.
On this occasion, and probably many more to come, I was off on my estimate — way off, by a huge margin. It shows you can’t value a home sight unseen, and you don’t know how much of a premium buyers are willing to pay if it ticks all the boxes. And my takeaway from this open home is that you should not sand all character out of your home to imitate the sage-renovation market. No matter what end of the market, memorability is what allows one buyer to depart from the comparable-sales spreadsheet — which is what I’m hoping to prove with my own home renovation.
See you at the next Inside Open Home in the Inner West.
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