A family with young kids beat out a developer to secure the Point Chev, Auckland, bungalow of jeweller-to-the-stars Peter Minturn, paying $2.605 million, $730,000 above its 2017 CV.
“It was the longest auction ever, it took an hour,” said Ray White Point Chev owner Derek von Sturmer, who marketed the property with Jo de Beer.
“There were just two bidders, bidding started at $2.3m went quickly to $2.5m and then just crept up in $1000 bids. They both really wanted it.”
Von Sturmer said the sale was a lockdown story – a family stuck in a small house, both parents working from home, who wanted to move to something bigger. The Minturn house, with five bedrooms, the jeweller’s studio and a roomy 718sqm yard fit the bill.
Start your property search
He added that the end-of-November sale came just before the “tap turned off” of buyers early in December, but then this week there was an unprecedented flood of buyer enquiries.
Family buyers beat out a developer for the Smale Street, Point Chevalier bungalow which had been done up in the 1970s and 80s. Photo / Supplied
“It’s a combination of factors. Although there’s the talk of interest rates, that’s never been an issue for our buyers. It was just fatigue, some people just didn’t want to do it anymore.
“Now people are looking for a deal, thinking that prices have come down, but they haven’t. A really good bungalow, four bedrooms, with a pool, will still fly out the door for easily over $3m.
“Everyone’s trying to read the market, buyers are looking by price point from Point Chev to Onehunga to the North Shore.”
Vendors, on the other hand, von Sturmer said, were in this week and last with “a roar of new listings”.
“Some of them are people who have just bought, others aren’t confident that there will be the buyers later in January, others hope that people finally coming in from overseas will be looking.
“The same lack of confidence happened in December last year. People were fatigued and shut down early – we had a December 15 auction last year and all 11 bidders pulled out on the day. It sold early in the new year with an asking price.”
The Smale Street 1930s bungalow was bought by jeweller Minturn and his wife in 1975, a few years after they had arrived from the UK.
In the 1970s, he designed pieces for Queen Elizabeth and her daughter Princess Anne when they were touring New Zealand, after a commission by the then Maori Queen Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, son Andrew Minturn earlier told OneRoof.
He said agents for visiting stars such as Elton John and Michael Caine also commissioned one-off pieces for them with a New Zealand theme. The workshop in the house was still lined with photos of famous clients.
Andrew said the Point Chevalier of his youth was definitely a working-class suburb, with kids on bikes making the most of their proximity to the beaches, parks, zoo and Western Spring for fishing and adventures. His parents are moving into nearby Selwyn Village.
Jeweller Peter Minturn's home workshop features photos of his many famous clients. Photo / Supplied
“Dad was passionate about speedway and motoring - it was all so close. We kids went to what was then called Seddon High [now Western Springs]. The big highlight was some time in the late 1970s when workmen dug up an elephant skeleton in the school yard.”
Von Sturmer said there was some relief the house was not to be bowled by a developer.
“It’s been beautifully maintained and updated over the years, but then there is ample opportunity to transform this into contemporary dream home,” he said.
“Now is definitely the time to be buying.”
