A run-down bungalow that was the scene of a violent crime sold at auction yesterday for $1.351 million.
The three-bedroom home on Cockburn Street, in Auckland’s Grey Lynn, had been pitched to buyers as a renovation project as well as an opportunity to redevelop the site.
Ray White agent Josh Andersen said in his marketing on OneRoof: “This one’s gotta go – in all senses of the word!
“Seriously for sale but not for the faint-hearted, this family homestead is ripe for a full renovation or alternatively, it’s a fantastic opportunity for you to start again and build your dream home.”
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The property, which was also damaged in last year’s Auckland floods, was one of 58 homes on the block at Ray White Manukau’s mega auction event yesterday.
Bidding on the home kicked off at $600,000 as potential buyers jostled to pick up a bargain in the popular inner-city suburb.
Barely two minutes into a tense, 10-minute auction, the auctioneer announced the property as being on the market at $1.15m. Bids came fast and furious, mostly in small increments, with the lucky buyer beating the competition by just $1000.
All up 66 bids were made, with the $1.351m sale price being $724,000 below its 2021 CV.
The property on Cockburn Street had a CV of $2.075m, but was run-down and damaged in the floods. Photo / Supplied
The house was declared a crime scene in July 2022, with the New Zealand Herald reporting that a man had been arrested for murder after a woman was found critically injured on the property. The woman died shortly after emergency services arrived.
Police and fire officers had to break through a neighbouring fence to gain access to the property.
Anderson said he was stoked for his vendor. “They achieved a lot more than we appraised for the property,” he said, explaining that he had thought, prior to the floods, it could fetch $1m, but had dropped price expectations to as low as $700,000 after the house was damaged.
“The property was swamped. Water came up to the stairs and through the floorboards,” he said, noting that the estimated cost of repairing the home “was going to be close to $500,000”.
Anderson said eight bidders had registered for the auction, with six active in the room. Most were tradies or builders who were buying cash or had access to other non-bank funds.
The listing agent told OneRoof he had expected the property would fetch between $700,000 and $800,000 after it was damaged in the floods. Photo / Supplied
First-home buyers had shown a lot of interest in the property early on, but they soon realised they would not be able to get finance or insurance for a flood-damaged home, Anderson said.
The auction was busy but not insanely busy. Part way through proceedings it was stopped to remind buyers that the property was yellow stickered and that there had been a death on the driveway.
The eventual buyer had experience with flood remediation, said Anderson. “To them, it was an opportunity.”
A near identical, but renovated home on the street had sold for $1.562m in 2022, at the trough of the market, Anderson said, adding that another property across the road had recently sold for $2m.
The sale of the Cockburn Street home was one of many standouts at Ray White’s auction event, dubbed The Day.
A total of 33 properties were sold at the event for, collectively, more than $24m.
Ray White lead auctioneer Sam Steele told OneRoof ahead of the event that big auction days were good for profile-building but they also managed to get a lot of buyers in one room on the same day.
“The eyeballs and the exposure the individual properties can get is just so helpful and actually competitive,” he said.
“If you are a homeowner and you put your property into a campaign like this, you can guarantee that more people are going to see it and potentially bid on it than if you did it somewhere else, so they are very, very powerful.”
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