An Auckland apartment that went to auction with a $1 reserve has sold under the hammer – for just $1. And the seller is very happy.
City Sales auctioneer Ted Ingram opened the auction for the four-bedroom apartment on Carrington Road, on the edge of Mount Albert, calling for bids.
There was one bold bid from a neighbour in the block, followed by an uncomfortable silence from the floor before he brought the hammer down just seconds later.
“I sell to the highest bidder; when I drop the hammer, it will be sold,” Ingram warned the room.
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After the hammer came down, he told the buyers that this was the first time he’d ever sold something for just $1 in all his years as an auctioneer.
The agent’s listing had warned first-home buyers to stay away from the auction, so it was no surprise the troubled apartment struggled to attract registered bidders.
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“People are really turned off by the body corporate disclosure documents,” City Sales sales manager Scott Dunn told OneRoof.
“The vendor is quite prepared to sell for a dollar and then pay our commission. So she will pay someone to take this off her hands.”
Dunn said that there was huge interest in the property, but once would-be buyers saw the paperwork, the number interested in bidding dwindled to just three.
“That’s what you’d expect for this sort of situation. We knew most people would be turned off,” he said. “But the vendor was very happy.”
The City Sales agent marketing the property, James Mairs, had earlier told OneRoof that “someone is going to get a screaming bargain” after emphasising the flat was vacant, abandoned and that the seller had had enough.
The apartment on Carrington Road was bought by another owner in the block, who knows the complicated issues with the body corporate. Photo / Supplied
The apartment in a former student housing complex on the edge of the Unitec campus is riddled with problems – covered in a detailed six-page document from the body professional corporate managers, Crockers, which pointed out unaudited accounts, no long-term maintenance plan and silence on what, if any, weather tightness, earthquake or land defects the plaster property had.
It was also on leasehold land, which is due for renewal in 2025. Mairs said rental estimates were between $650 and $800 a week.
City Sales had better success with a $5000 reserve property it marketed in June. The studio apartment in the former Auckland Railway station building, also on leasehold land, brought strong bidding and sold for $36,500.
And last week a house with a $1 reserve marketed by Ray White Manukau agent Bob Lemalu sold for $510,000 after a fierce 51 bids were exchanged. The run-down shack on Fitzroy Street, Papatoetoe, had already been abandoned by its owners who had left the country. Billed as the worst house on the best street, it was bought by builders as a base for their business.
In April the sixth house in a new terrace home development in Manurewa was marketed with a $1 reserve and sold for $641,200. It too had strict clauses that bidders needed to see before bidding, but other houses in the same development had settled earlier in the year for between $730,000 and $800,000.
Real estate professionals told OneRoof that the $1 sale was a first.
Barfoot & Thompson auctioneer Murray Smith said in his 31 years wielding the hammer, he’d only done one $1 reserve – and it went gangbusters.
“About 20 years ago I did a no-reserve auction. It was a townhouse in Remuera, and we got a massive price,” he said.
“It was just a ballsy owner. He was also an auctioneer and trusted the process. It brought in the buyers, encouraged the interest and it sold for well more than the rest of the block.
“But I’ve never heard of a $1 reserve place going for just $1.”
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