There are fewer than 500 do-up homes still left in Ponsonby and Grey Lynn, new figures from real estate listing site OneRoof suggest.
OneRoof and its data partner Valocity examined the number of homes in the two sought-after Auckland suburbs that had not changed hands or been substantially improved since 2000 to see how many could be classed as "million-dollar fixer-uppers".
OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan says: "Aucklanders have long revelled in stories about derelict homes selling for millions of dollars - especially in Ponsonby and Grey Lynn.
"Only last month an agent made the headlines for selling an 84sqm un-renovated two-bedroom home in Grey Lynn for $1.92 million."
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Vaughan adds: "In the last 30 to 40 years Ponsonby and Grey Lynn have gone from down-at-heel working class and bohemian suburbs to two of Auckland's most expensive housing markets. Most of the houses in both suburbs have been turned into multi-million-dollar modern homes.
"However, there are still some unimproved homes still out there ripe for redevelopment and can fetch high prices from renovators wanting to restore them to their former glory."
According to the data, Ponsonby had a house count of 2054 in 2000, of which 996 had not changed hands by 2019. The number of houses in Grey Lynn in 2000 was 4632, of which 2055 had not changed hands by 2019.
This 84sqm un-renovated two-bedroom home in Grey Lynn sold for $1.92 million last month.
Vaughan says: "To ascertain how many could be classified as 'do-ups', we looked at the improvement value in the CVs of the unsold homes. A low number would suggest a home had not been worked on since 2000 and was in need of a renovation."
According to the data, there are 264 properties in Grey Lynn with less than 10 percent of their CV value in improvements and 220 in Ponsonby.
"The Ponsonby street that appeared to have the greatest concentration of homes with little to no improvements was Kelmarna Avenue while Stanmore Road was the street with the most potential do-ups in Grey Lynn," says Vaughan.
Agents say many potential do-ups in both suburbs are owned by people who don’t know - and who are often not interested in - the current value of their home.
Barfoot and Thompson agent Matt O’Rourke, who operates in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby, says houses which are yet to be renovated can be in various states of repair, estimates there are probably one or two do-ups in every street in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby.
“Some might not have been touched or with very minor improvements and others may have had a renovation done 30 or 40 years ago or in the ‘70s with bright carpets and wallpaper.”
People who live in these homes may have owned them for decades, says O’Rourke, who points out there’s a difference between a do-up and a dump.
“You get something that you can’t really live in, that the windows could be currently boarded up and it’s uninhabitable, but you might get some that are a liveable do up, where some would live in it but others wouldn’t.
Ponsonby is one of Auckland's most expensive suburbs.
“I think you could just about pick any street in Ponsonby or Grey Lynn and you’d find an absolute do up and you’d find a liveable do up.”
Some of the people who live in these sorts of houses often wait for something significant to happen in their lives before they have a reason to sell, he says.
And with older people, some don’t realise the extent to which values have skyrocketed over the past 40 years. “They don’t quite get their heads around how much it’s gone up. Especially older people, they don’t really know the difference between a few hundred thousand and tens of thousands, they just see it as a number.”
These folk grew up in a completely different world, O’Rourke says.
“If they’ve been in a house they bought for $47,000 back in the early 1980s or the late 1970s and now you tell them it’s worth $1.something-million it doesn’t really change their mind that much.”
When these homes do sell they can fetch big prices from buyers keen to renovate.
“People love paying for the potential. Like, people would prefer to buy something that hadn’t been touched in 100 years than something that had a renovation 30 years ago because they’re going to strip out that renovation.”
O’Rourke recalls a villa he sold around five years ago in Baildon Road which still had the toilet on the back veranda and all its original features, such as skirtings, architraves and timber floors. Even though the house was old, it was in great condition and sold for $1.2 million – a record at the time.
O’Rourke says he probably sells one do up a year, as would all the other agents.
“There’s probably 50-odd agents working this area, probably more - there could be 100.”
Neighbouring Point Chevalier also has a high percentage of housing stock that has not changed hands since 2000 – 40 percent.
Derek von Sturmer, from the Professionals, says it is fairly common for people who have inherited their parents’ bungalow to still be living in it.
“They’re living in a humble bungalow that hasn’t been renovated. It’s always like stepping back in time.”
Most of the homes have been well looked after and maintained, but not all, but they all generally sell.
In one recent sale, where the elderly owner had died, the house had been in a “very tired” state but still sold for $2.17 million.
“I remember selling a home for an older gentleman about three years ago and it was his mum’s house, he’d inherited it, lived in it all of his life, he would have been 92 at the time,” says von Sturmer.
The house sold for $1.73 million and the owner was stunned. “The first thing he did was walk down to the car yard and bought a new car and put himself into a really nice home.”
Sometimes houses are a bit too original, von Sturmer says.
A house in Walford Road, which sold last month for $2.27 million, was snapped up probably because of the section size but wasn’t in good condition inside.
“I would say that will be pulled down and new houses built there.”
But homes that are in good condition and haven’t already had a renovation are popular with second or third buyers who have renovated before, he says.
“They’ve all got a similar layout so it’s easy to know what can and can’t be done to them.”
