Auckland's three-day lockdown did nothing to curb buyer appetites, with big sums paid at the city's online auctions this week.
A pair of 1950s houses in Mount Albert on 1292sqm fetched $4.15 million under the hammer, while a tidy brick and tile on 936sqm in Point Chevalier sold for $3.26 million.
READ MORE: Find out if your suburb is rising or falling
Both properties, sold at Barfoot and Thompson's auctions on Tuesday, came with development plans in place.
Start your property search
Jinay Shah, the listing agent for 3 & 5 Norrie Avenue, in Mount Albert, told OneRoof that he had five active phone bidders fighting to secure the adjoining properties because “all the hard yards had been done".
The vendor had secured resource consent for 10 lots on the land, Shah said. “The vendor had a developer friend who said before you sell it, get resource consents. That was a year ago."
He added: “Mount Albert is on rocks, there’s not a stormwater line, so some developers opt out. My vendor had done the rock bore holes, it didn’t need a lot of bridging, and people realised the value in that.”
The eventual sale price was $1.445 million above the combined CV of the two three-bedroom homes.
An artist impression of the development plans for 3 & 5 Norrie Avenue, in Mount Albert. Pictures / Supplied
Shah said that in addition to the phone bidders, he had four clients waiting in the wings ready to make post-auction offers if the properties passed in. These buyers were still looking hard.
“If I had four more listings [like this] I would sell them in 48 hours. I’ve got people looking for 800sqm to 3000sqm [properties], with budgets from $2.8 million to $8 million," he said.
“One corporation has investors with $60 million to buy sites before the new LVR restrictions come in on March 1.”
Agents for the buyer, Kelly Zhang and Dan Song, said their client was an experienced developer who had been looking for land all over central Auckland. The pair also sold a development site at 2 McQuoid Place, in Glenfield, under the hammer for $1.61 million, $700,000 above its CV.
The 774sqm corner site, which has 1970s-build home on it, came with resource and building consents.
A corner section at 2 McQuoid Place, Glenfield with building and resource consents in place sold for $1.61 million. Picture / Supplied
Also fetching big money was 95 Walker Road, in Point Chevalier. The 936sqm section, which has a three-bedroom large family home on it, was sold with concept designs for either two duplexes plus four terrace houses or two duplexes plus three free-standing houses.
Barfoot and Thompson Point Chevalier branch manager Tony Worsp, whose agent Ian Yu listed the property, said that the Auckland lockdown had not put off buyers, with the property fetching $3.26 million under the hammer, more than $1 million above the 2017 CV.
“From the minute level three was announced, the pre-auction offers came rolling in as if nothing had happened. The number of pre-auction offers are always a barometer of the market, and when it’s like this, buyers don’t want to wait," he said.
“They’ve been here before, they think ‘it’s only three days’. That’s the state of the market.”
A development site at 95 Walker Avenue, Point Chevalier went for $3.26 million. Picture / Supplied
Worsp said that experienced developers who have multiple projects on the go know how to work with complex council issues. “A lot of buyers want other people to do that work, and will pay a premium for the legwork. Then they can go ahead and build.”
The auction results come as the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand showed that the number of auctions in January was the highest since REINZ began recording sales method. Around the country 16.1% of sales were by auction – up from just 6.5% in January last year.
In Auckland nearly three in ten (27.6%) of sales were by auction, with 516 properties selling under the hammer. Last year just 194 Auckland properties sold at auction in January.
The booming auction market has prompted a 20% slump in the number of properties for sale in from 19,488 in January last year to just 15,480 this January on the back of record lows in December.
