A 400sqm strip of bare land in Auckland’s sought-after suburb of Grey Lynn sold last week for $1.925 million.
The empty section was one of a pair of sections subdivided from a larger plot, believed to be a car park behind the West Lynn shops, in 2019. The vendors paid $1.5m for it in January 2020, but it now has a CV of $2.475m.
Ray White agent Kane Taylor, who marketed the land, said a new baby had stymied the vendors’ plans to build their smart four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on the site, but he’d had interest from buyers as far away as the eastern beaches keen to build new in Grey Lynn – as well as a few “cheeky” developers.
“It was bloody hard to put a value on the land because obviously there’s nothing like it.
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“It’s a prime site, everyone loves West Lynn and will pay a premium to get in,” he said, adding that there are so few land sales in the suburb to make comparisons.
Renovated villas on the street have sold recently for $2.7m, peaking at $3.31m in August last year for an immaculately renovated and extended villa a few doors up.
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Taylor said the buyers plan to build, but wasn’t sure whether they’d pick up the stylish two-storey concepts developed by his vendors with planners and designers The Development Collective. Taylor said estimates at the end of last year put the likely re-sale price of the completed project at $4m.
The property, one of a pair subdivided from a carpark behind the West Lynn shops had a CV of $2.475m and last sold three years ago for $1.5m. Photo / Supplied
A new-build is also planned for the next-door section, also 400sqm, which was bought in February 2020 for $1.45m, records show.
Properties around $2m in Grey Lynn are still few and far between.
Taylor said a smartly renovated two-bedroom cottage on 53 Sussex Street he has listed, asking $2.149m, less than its $2.25m CV, is the only one currently available in Grey Lynn. It sold two-and-a-half years ago for $1.6m, but the owners have completely made over the place, ripping out fake brick and aluminium windows and adding new bathrooms, kitchen and charm.
A shortage of housing stock, outside of apartments and townhouses, is frustrating buyers, said Ray White agent Keith Dowdle who reckons the popular inner city suburb has about half the number of listings it needs to meet demand.
“We’ve barely 20 houses for sale in Grey Lynn, when 40 would be comfortable. And we haven’t had that for the summer.
“What’s happened is that if vendors get the chance to hold on, they are holding on. That’s a dangerous game as buyers are very, very keen to buy. We haven’t seen this level of in-bound enquiry for two years,” he said, adding that even stock that had been sitting a while was now getting fresh interest from buyers.
“Last year buyers were disengaged, vendors were sitting. Buyers felt vendors were in a past market for pricing, and were just waiting. In this market, if I were a vendor, I’d be listing now – there are more serious buyers out there, we’ve lost the tourists.
A three-bedroom cottage in original condition at 52 Old Mill Road, Grey Lynn, is being auction May 11. Photo / Supplied
“It’s so tight out there.”
A test will be the price achieved on a heritage two-bedroom cottage on 52 Old Mill Road he is bringing to auction May 11, with Sandy Dowdle. OneRoof records show the deceased estate last sold 25 years ago for $150,000, but with its CV of $$2.15m, and $1.95m of that in the land value, Dowdle said it was impossible to know its worth in this market.
The concrete cottage, one of the row of 100-year-old former-council houses above Western Springs Park, has been unoccupied for five years. The two-bedroom home and sleepout sits on a level 560 sqm with wide views across the western suburbs, but photos show an original condition kitchen and washhouse, with ivy creeping inside the home – a definite ‘before’ that can’t be bowled, but is ripe for renovation.
Another Grey Lynn property is also being advertised as a ‘million-dollar land grab’. Even though it has a striking 1990s corrugated steel three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on it, the cross-lease property on 43 Tuarangi Street is asking just $1.04m.
Another property in Grey Lynn, on Tuarangi Street, is being advertised as a ‘million-dollar land-grab' asking $1.04m. Photo / Supplied
Barfoot & Thompson agents Kath Barnes and Jacqui Vaughan-Kells, who are marketing the property, say in their advertising ‘buy the land and get the house free’, referring to its CV of $1.425m.
Barnes said the overseas vendors had had building consents for the house when it was built in 1998, but it had never received a final council CCC sign-off. They have since put in a brand-new contemporary kitchen with luxury appliances, and the property offers amenities that are rare to find in inner-city properties such as the single garage and additional off-street parking, but Barnes said the house is being sold “as is, where is”.
Grey Lynn Barfoot & Thompson branch manager Andrew Cosgrave said that there is not a lot of property selling in the suburb.
“My gut feeling is that Grey Lynn owners who have got a bit more equity don’t need to sell as much as other parts of the [Auckland] market. People are prepared to wait a long time, more people in our area can afford to wait one month or a year.”
He added that buyers who bought in the last two years wouldn’t want to sell now, while older Grey Lynn owners who bought years ago would be waiting for the market to rise so they can cash out and face no urgency.
“People selling in this area and trading up see it’s a good time to trade up, they’ll get more for their money,” he said.
Cosgrave said buyers of all budgets are getting back in the market as they sense sellers are more realistic about prices now, and those prices are more likely to be below the CVs set in the 2021 market peak.
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