The listing ad for 7a Debron Avenue is certainly different.
The five-bed home sits on a sizeable 832sq m section in Auckland's Remuera. It is northern facing and is set back from the road, so enjoys privacy and the sun. It also has a modern, flexible layout, offers great flow to the garden and, for those with teenagers or adult children who have yet to leave the nest, has a separate, self-contained area.
So far, so good. But here's where the twist comes. The house has a 2017 council valuation of $2.7 million - but in the marketing for the property, the owners want buyers to completely disregard that number.
The listing ad for the well-presented home says the "CV does not relate to owners expectations - disregard CV".
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Also in the marketing, and the agents are upfront about it, is the fact that the house does not have current council code of compliance "and needs care and attention to obtain one".
The listing agents say buyers "will need to do a project".
"The call is out for all builders, project fiends, visionaries and those looking for a golden opportunity. This house offers so so much and with your creative flair and practical skills you can transform this home into something very special," the listing ad says.
Ray White agent Gerard Charteris explains this is a very unfortunate situation for the family who own the house because a dispute between contractors means it has not had a CCC issued.
When the ad says “completely ignore the CV”, that’s because whoever buys is likely to get the home for a great price - but they will have to be prepared to do the remedial work. “It’s got a CV of $2.7m, the land is $1.7m and we’re talking substantially less than that,” Charteris says.
“It’s probably not what you’d call complicated because, say, from a builder’s point of view or someone who has the ability to be able to go through the process you’re going to have to go for a new building consent anyhow and it would go under the reclad division of Auckland Council so they would become involved in it and I would think they probably would say you’re going to have to bring it up to today’s code and what that entails.”
The property itself is a great one, Charteris says. “It’s nicely elevated, sitting up, getting good sun and on a full site in a Remuera location, very close to Meadowbank School and Remuera Intermediate," he says.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for someone who has the skills and the ability to buy a home in a great area and probably in the long run really get into it and make some money out the other side. We’re getting people who are looking to buy and do it up themselves and to live in it. “
Charteris says homes are sold from time to time without CCCs and buyers need to be aware there could be issues, for example, if they want banks to lend them the money to buy.
On the other hand, in this case the land value of around $1.7m may give enough equity level for a bank to provide finance.
Buyers then have to fund the reclad and sort their way through the CCC issues, which can be costly and time-consuming.
“But the good news in this case is if the cavity has worked then your framing and that sort of thing should be in reasonably good condition.”
Charteris says while this ad advises would-be buyers to ignore the CV, that doesn’t mean all homes with this wording have something wrong with them.
“We’ve used it recently where a property we were selling, which was a concrete block home, had a really high CV in relationship to the true value of the property when we did our appraisal.
“The problem really is a lot of people probably use the CV as a benchmark for whether they should come and have a look at a property or not, because it’s all auctions, so what we’re really doing is giving them a really good steer that okay, ignore the CV because we believe it will sell for less than the CV.
“We just want to get the right people coming through the property.”
And if you do happen upon a property that is not compliant, or has been added to with a non-compliant sleep-out or garage, Charteris says the agent has to disclose this and the advice is to get legal advice.
The council can - and sometimes does - get non-compliant items torn down or removed.
“We had a case in Orakei where the roof didn’t comply and so they put an order on it and gave them 12 months to replace it, and we disclosed that to the purchaser, the purchaser insisted, because they couldn’t get finance, to replace the roof, which the vendor did.”
Check out the listing below:
