The Onehunga 'rich list': 'They'd have to pay $5m for this kind of home in Ponsonby'

Grey Lynn and Ponsonby buyers with budgets of $3 million or more are heading south to the Auckland city fringe suburb of Onehunga to get more bang for their budget.

Harcourts agent Matthew Swan, who is bringing a luxuriously renovated four-bedroom Art Deco-style house on 80 Alfred Street, Onehunga, to auction on September 3, said that buyers from the inner-city suburbs, as well as from Orakei, St Heliers and Half Moon Bay, are showing interest in the house that he expects to sell for more than $3m.

“It’s a first for Onehunga. They'd have to pay $5m for this kind of home in Ponsonby, they can’t afford that in their area, but here you’re looking for north of $3m,” he said.

A sale of over $3m for 80 Alfred Street would make it one of Onehunga’s top sale prices for a residential property. The current record for a residential property was set four years ago for a six-bedroom villa on Victoria Street, Onehunga, that fetched $3.1m.

The immaculately renovated home, complete with a guest house, pool, and 2227sqm of landscaped grounds, marketed by Ray White’s Martin Honey and Ben Bibby, is a rarity in the suburb where most of the recent high prices paid are for sites with potential for urban or apartment development.

Buyers from Grey Lynn and Ponsonby are attracted to well-done renovations such as this listing on Alfred Street, Onehunga. Photo / Supplied

The suburb’s only sales over $4m were last year at the peak of the development rush. A 1900sqm site on Tawa Road zoned for suburban density sold for $4.56m in April (its June 2021 CV is $5.65m). Another five-bedroom villa, on 1421sqm land zoned for urban density and billed as a developer’s dream, on Trafalgar Street went for $4.381m in November, well over its $2.95m CV.

The only other over $3m sales have been for development sites – one on Spring Street that sold for $3.88m in July 2020 and another on Grey Street that fetched $3.2m in October last year.

A villa on a 1421sqm land zoned for urban density, on Trafalgar Street, Onehunga sold for $4.381m in November. Photo / Supplied

However, Ray White agent Trent Hodson, who sold the Trafalgar Street property, said it was possible for a good house to fetch over $3m in this market as a home, not a development site.

“It would have to be extremely special, and views would help,” he said.

“We do have a very small segment of people from Grey Lynn or Ponsonby still coming out here, they’re looking for something special with heritage, a villa or bungalow around Trafalgar Street, or Onehunga Heights towards Norman Hill Road.”

Ben Bibby, who marketed the Victoria Street villa, said buyers with $2m and up to $3m or even $4m will come across town from Ponsonby for the right property.

“They like the proximity to the cafes and town centre, and motorway access,” he said, adding that buyers paid $5.7m this March for a strikingly modernised five-bedroom villa on 1848sqm on Boyd Avenue, just over the border in Royal Oak – nearly $1m over its 2021 CV of $4.725m.

A house on Arthur Street, Onehunga, with an award-winning renovation by Alignworks Architects sold for $2m in December 2020. Photo / Supplied

Bibby said there were good buys at slightly lower price points too. A four-bedroom villa he and Honey marketed on Trafalgar Street in March had seven bidders and sold for $2.7m, while a smartly renovated four-bedroom villa on the Royal Oak end of Mount Smart Road fetched $2.5m in June, after five bidders competed.

“There’s no ceiling, people can be looking at $3m, $4m, even $5m. We call Cornwall Park the Hyde Park of Auckland, there are cafes, people do want to be here,” Bibby said.

NZ Sotheby’s International Realty agent Paul Sissons, who is marketing a five-bedroom villa on a 3176sqm site on Symonds Street, asking $5.5m, said that while there had been offers on the property, after 10 weeks on the market it was still waiting to lock in a buyer.

“The people who are looking know it’s a special piece of land, they’re looking at a big piece of dirt for their children or grandchildren to run around in, coming from a smaller quarter acre property. The land value alone is $6m, people know they’re buying this to hold for five to 10 years.

“It’s not a quick buck, but it could eventually be carved up. It will be a special buyer.”

In June, a four-bedroom villa on Mount Smart Road, Onehunga, sold for $2.5m. Photo / Supplied

Harcourts agent Swan wouldn’t be drawn on where the price might land for the renovated art deco Alfred Street house, but said the council’s 2021 CV of $2.9m did not take into account the work done by developer Igor Sutich. Records show the property changed hands in early 2019 for $916,000.

“People are coming in and going ‘my god, where did this come from?’. It’s like you’d find on the Los Angeles hills. It’s a big 1148sqm site, you could put in a pool or a garage or a secondary dwelling,” Swan said.

Sutich, who bought the shabby 1930s house in early 2019, told OneRoof that time off through two lockdowns helped him switch his plans from a mere tidy up of an investment property to a wholesale renovation.

“It just grew legs from there, it’s a labour of love,” he said, of the cedar reclad of an early 2000s extension that then morphed to a marble-clad kitchen, brand-new bathrooms, exterior courtyards and a firepit, terracing and landscaping. Sutich brought in reeded glass and steel doors, deco-style balustrades and wallpapers to honor the home’s 1930s origins.

He wouldn’t say what he spent on the renovation, but said it was now a home that he hopes will find a buyer who “will fall in love.”

A stylishly renovated four-bedroom villa on Boyd Avenue on the border of Royal Oak and Onehunga sold for $5.7m in March. Photo / Supplied

“I expect a buyer back from overseas looking at Remuera or Parnell or Greenlane will see Onehunga as such an eclectic mix of shops, it feels like Grey Lynn or Westmere or Mount Albert.”

Striking architecture does earn a premium in the area.

In late 2020, an architectural extension of a 1940s house that won a 2019 award for Alignworks Architects sold for $2m - $500,000 above its CV - after about 75 groups inspected it during two weeks of open homes.

At the time Bayleys agent Glen Baker, who marketed the property, said it set a benchmark for the area, adding that homes that don’t require work were in high demand.

“People like to walk into something nice, know there’ll be no further costs for renovations and there’s a lot of comfort and security in that,” he said.

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