UPDATED: The most expensive home of 2020 has a lot of star factor. The buyers of an Auckland home that the New Zealand Herald reported sold for around $23 million are a former All Black and the sister of a billionaire toy manufacturer.
The waterfront house, which once belonged to Shrek director Andrew Adamson and was marketed for sale by New Zealand Sotheby's International Realty agent Pene Milne, is now in the hands of Ali WIlliams and Anna Mowbray, whose brother owns Zuru Toys.
The reported sale price, which Sotheby's has not confirmed, would be more than double the previous record-holder for 2020, an unidentified home in Auckland's Takapuna, which sold for $10.7 million. The next highest settled sale price for 2020 is $9 million, paid for a luxury cliff-top home on Waiheke Island.
The house, at 4 Newton Road, Oneroa, was snapped up at the start of the year by a local who was looking to upgrade to something bigger.
Start your property search
All three sale prices, as impressive as they are, don’t come close to eclipsing the all-time record holder, paid for an Auckland mansion built by controversial financier Mark Hotchin.
That seven-bedroom Paritai Drive house, which spans three sections and overlooks the Waitemata Harbour, sold in 2013 for $39 million and now has a CV of $46 million.
Few properties have come close to taking Paritai Drive’s crown. While the reported $23 million sale price for Williams' new home is up on last year’s record of $15.5 million, for 516 Ladies Mile, in Lake Hayes, Queenstown, it is short of the 2018 top price of $27.5 million, for 15 Cremorne Street, in Auckland’s Herne Bay.
4 Newton Road, Oneroa, in Waiheke Island, sold for $9 million at the start of the year. Photo / Supplied
The top end of the market hit its stride in 2015 when the number of $2 million-plus sales jumped from 966 the year before to 1641. A year later the top end hit its peak, with just over 2000 $2 million-plus sales, but it has been sliding in years since, dropping to 1520 sales in 2019.
'Ultra-high value sales'
Kellands sales agent Martin Dobson, who brokered the Newton Road deal, says unique properties are attract the buyers - both locals and ex-pats - and there is still a lot of enquiry but that a lack of supply is holding back top end buyers.
"The challenge is that there is not a lot of good quality property, even at the top end. There are buyers there, but at $10 million plus there is not a lot available. Even at $8 million we don't have pages and pages of property," he says.
The seven-bedroom Paritai Drive house that holds the record of New Zealand’s highest sale. Photo / Supplied
Ollie Wall, of Wall Real Estate, which sold the Paritai Drive house, agrees that stock is a problem. “If there were [more homes at that value] we would see sales at that level more often – it’s not for lack of well-qualified buyers out there at all.”
However, he believes the Paritai Drive record will be broken – it’s just a matter of time. In fact, the agency is on the cusp of some ultra-high value sales they can’t discuss, he says.
“I’m sure we’re not the only ones. This time there is a different driver and that is that New Zealand is looking even more attractive than ever post-Covid,” he says.
“A large percentage of New Zealand’s most successful people live offshore and right now they are all planning on coming home and spending as much time in NZ as possible in the future.”
The agency is receiving specific briefs and the dates of when people will arrive back, he says.
“They are sending family to view the houses and we give personal facetime viewings. These buyers are planning on relocating families a lot of the time and want to have the schools, houses and beach houses ready and waiting upon their return.
“The most common brief is modern or recently renovated family homes in central suburbs such as Remuera, Parnell, Herne Bay and Ponsonby.”
The record could be broken tomorrow
One of the most expensive listings in the country currently is the eye-watering price tag for the super penthouse in Auckland central’s nearly completed apartment tower The Pacifica, that property is being marketed for sale by New Zealand Sotheby's International Realty agents Jason Gaddes and Scarlett Wood.
The luxury apartment that occupies the 53rd and 54th floors at the top of the building and includes its very own butler’s kitchen and wine cellar – grabbed international headlines as New Zealand’s most expensive home.
Reports in Bloomberg and Business Insider put a $40 million price tag on the apartment.
The penthouse is exempt from the foreign buyer ban with Gaddes telling property site Mansion Global in May that “the penthouse (along with the rest of the units in the Pacifica) is exempt from the [foreign buyer ban], as the building was already under construction when the law was enacted in late 2018".
The Pacifica super penthouse has a reported price tag of $40 million. Photo / Supplied
Gavin Lloyd, national director of residential projects for CBRE, which is selling sub-penthouses apartments in the Pacifica, has no doubt the record will be broken in time.
The market has been disrupted with travel restrictions and the global disruption caused by Covid 19 but Lloyd predicts further interest when the building is finished in a few months.
“Often those large super penthouses are sold once the building’s completed or very near completion. It could be tomorrow, who knows.”
New Zealand is ready for these huge sales, Lloyd says, and for a billionaire $40m is not a lot of money.
“Certainly, there are eyes on New Zealand. We’ve effectively broken the back of Covid and it’s been really well managed.”
Foreign buyer ban
The Pacifica is exempt from the foreign buyer ban which Lloyd says is an impediment for big sales of other high-end properties as they are off the table to overseas buyers.
The foreign buyer ban is a big bugbear for Bayleys sales agent John Greenwood, who sells luxury properties around the country.
The former Hotchin mansion was exceptional value for a standalone residential house, he says, but he deals with coastal and other properties on larger pieces of land which attract big sums.
There is good interest in one at Omarino in the Far North in the $25 million to $30 million bracket, he says, and he listed a property last week near Muriwai, on Auckland’s west coast, which he says will be the $40 million to $50 million range - but points out along with a beautiful house that will buy 700 hectares.
Another big block of land at Muriwai sold for $26 million at the start of the year, he says.
“There are people in the marketplace that have that money to spend for the right type of product.”
516 Ladies Mile, in Lake Hayes, was bought by Queenstown Council last year for $15.5 million.Photo / Supplied
Greenwood has noticed a change in the mindset of high wealth Kiwis who want “lineage properties” to go into a family estate for future generations of the family.
“The people in my market are looking for long-term hero property which are just outstanding pieces of real estate.”
The difference is that while over the last 20 years the children of the very wealthy went offshore for all their holidays now there is more energy being put into lineage real estate.
Greenwood also says he would have more sales in the tens of millions of dollars if the foreign buyer ban was lifted.
“I would have 10 internationals who would pay plus-$30 million to own some real estate in New Zealand to come and escape to.
“The Americans are busting to get in here to buy the eco, the quality of life, the non-Covid, and so are the Europeans.”
Own your own island
Another listing he says would likely sell is Pakatoa Island in the Hauraki Gulf - which has a $40 million price tag and has been on the market he thinks for around 25 years.
“We’ve had serious interest from foreign companies, hotel companies, prior to Covid who were very interested in it and over Covid international individuals were interested in it.
“There’s been a couple of interested players, and I can’t say their names, but attached to the America’s Cup and, you know, if we won the America’s Cup I would say we would get a number of offers.”
The island has a resort background and over the last five years Auckland has gone from “just an airport” to being marketed as a tourist destination.
Potential owners would likely use the island to attract the rich and famous, and particularly yachties, to a luxury resort and Greenwood says if the foreign buyer ban was lifted the island would likely fetch the $40 million asking price.
Nick Horton, of Luxury Realty in Queenstown, says he has nothing on the books to rival the price of the Paritai Drive mansion but also thinks the record will be broken, however, for a purely residential property he thinks it may hold for a while yet.
While he has nothing around that price he thinks there will be people spending at least that much on pieces of land and then building.
And, if he did have such a property he is sure there would be buyers.
“There’s certainly Kiwis we’re in contact with who could buy a property of that value if they wanted to, and there’s obviously a lot of internationals that would be prepared to spend that much if they were allowed to purchase.”
Norton is also critical of the foreign buyer ban and says solutions, by way of taxes and levies and a different class of rating, could open the market up and those buyers would contribute to local economies.
“The internationals all just want to come and spend time in New Zealand and when they’re not here they’re round the world promoting how great it is but crazily we’ve closed off that connection.”
