The bank building was sold for $2.9 million – $600,000 above the reserve – to a Sydney-based investor, but an even better result was realised for level one of Florin House in Smollett Street.

It was sold for $5.1 million after a government department signed up on a seven-year lease earlier this year.

The properties were offered for sale in Melbourne on Wednesday with Burgess Rawson & Associates and L.J. Colquhoun Dixon acting as conjunctional agents for the respective vendors.

The three-level Bendigo Bank building had been owned by a retired chemist from Bendigo.

The bank had recently signed up on a further five-year lease with an option to extend to 2026.

Florin House, located next door to the former Australian Taxation Office, was developed by John Mee and Glenn McCabe in the mid-2000s.

They owned level one along with Glenn Thurlow with the new owners being farmers from Cobram.

A childcare centre in Wodonga was passed in for $2.6 million.

Agent Andrew Dixon from L.J. Colquhoun Dixon said the two successful sales were further proof of the booming commercial real estate investment market locally following the sale this year of the First Choice liquor store building for $6.6 million and Good Guys store in Young Street for $5.175 million.

“The market is very, very strong at present,” he said.

“It’s the strongest the commercial real estate investment market has ever been in Albury-Wodonga.

“It is recognition of Albury-Wodonga being a strong regional centre.

“A lack of good investment property for sale in the region, hence the strong sale prices.”

The Bendigo Bank building has been home to a bank since the 1950s when it was occupied by the Rural Bank of NSW which was later renamed the Colonial State Bank in the early 1980s.

The Commonwealth Bank purchased all Colonial State's branches in 2000 and absorbed staff into its own branches.

Bendigo Bank moved in during 2001 after previously being in Centrepoint.