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It's because the results have been so elevated this year that agents have a hard time setting an estimate.
A dilapidated cottage on a small Woonona block, not near the beach, sold for almost $900,000 this week: the old rules of thumb mean little.
"We're increasingly seeing property prices two, three, four hundred thousand above our personal estimate," Ray White Woonona principal Troy Johnson said.
"After 21 years in real estate I've prided myself in being quite exact with pricing of properties - however this year prices have increased so quickly and rapidly that it's now extremely hard to accurately price a property.
"Hence, you'll see most properties now going straight to auction or saying 'contact agent' [instead of listing a price]."
The run-down cottage at 66 Gray St, Woonona, sold for $890,000 this week. The house, on a small and overgrown 409 sq m lot, appeared barely habitable and was described as needing "a complete internal renovation".
The previous month, a pleasant but unspectacular three-bedroom house on 613 sq m on the same street sold for $1.45 million - an increase of 111 per cent over its previous sale price, $688,000 in 2015.
Neither of these are on the beach side of Memorial Drive.
"The highest sale price last year in the area was $3.7 million - this year it's $6.2 million," Mr Johnson said. "That's just four months - 120 days - and it's gone from $3.7 million to $6.2 million. The market moves that rapidly."