An overseas buyer bought a luxury seven-bedroom mansion in Queenstown in January for $15.08 million - more than $3m above its RV.
The sale price, which has just been made public, is the highest for Queenstown-Lakes so far this year, and second only to a $20m mansion sale in Whitford Auckland.
The property is one of several high-end homes in the district attracting wealthy international buyers.
Built over a sprawling 1200sqm size, the house on Haggitt Lane, in the exclusive Bendemeer Estate, was designed by well-known architects Mason and Wales as a family home.
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It boasts children’s bedrooms and ensuites, a guest wing with a bunkroom, as well as the lavish master suite, and sits on a nearly 1.7ha plot surrounded by rugged mountains and water features.
The property had been on the market from 2021 to mid-2022 before being re-listed in November last year by New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agents Sarah McBride and Sarena Glass. It was sold to an international client brought to the property by an Auckland Sotheby's agent, Scarlett Wood.
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“It is a good example of our network,” said Sotheby's managing director Mark Harris.
“The buyers had been looking on and off, they were coming down to look around, but they put their trust in us from offshore. They have gone through residency and want to live here, get involved in the local community and make this their permanent home.”
According to OneRoof records, the land last sold in 2014 for $950,000.
The luxury home features multiple formal and informal livings rooms, a kitchen with both a scullery and butler's pantry, a summer room for entertaining, a wine cellar, media room and office-library. The home's wellness centre included a gym, plunge pool and sauna, and the agents described as lavish the guest rooms as well as a sumptuous principal suite.
Harris said the office had several buyers in “that category” of $15m looking at the moment, focusing their search on the Southern Lakes area, Hawke's Bay, Tauranga and Auckland, including Waiheke Island.
“For those towns, waterfront is key. In the lakes, it’s not necessarily looking for big hectares, as some like to be close to access the village.”
The Haggitt Lane estate attracted buyers from around the world, connected to New Zealand by Sotheby’s International Real Estate networks. Photo / Supplied
As well as multiple living rooms, the Haggitt Lane estate included a library-study, a wellness centre, wine cellar and media room. Photo / Supplied
Wood, who earlier told OneRoof that the buyer's details were confidential, said she flew down to Queenstown every week for six weeks to complete the deal for her international clients.
“There’s a lot of interest from high-net worth individuals, it has really taken off since late October after our borders opened in August. With the US dollar [exchange rate] it’s really attractive to buy.
“They know what they want, and they’ve done their research,” she said, adding that well before buyers land in the country, their agents have already put together an extensive itinerary as buyers like to look at a lot of properties.
“There are not enough properties on the market, but there are enough off-market. Quite often their budgets can be stretched up to $15m, $20m, $25m. There are a lot of people coming in.”
Colliers Queenstown broker James O’Hagan, agrees.
“We’ve seen strong interest in the premium market in the last couple of years. If people see the potential, they’ll drop $15m on something absolutely unique, and then throw a $5m [renovation] at it,” he said.
O’Hagan is currently marketing an expansive lakefront property on one of Queenstown’s most sought-after streets, 90 Park Street which is expected to fetch a price well over its $11.59m CV.
A lakefront 451sqm house and studio in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright on a double 2150sqm section at 90 Park Street, Queenstown, is going to tender May 18. Photo / Supplied
The Park Street property, which includes a vacant section around the corner, is zoned for density so could be developed by future owners. Photo / Supplied
The four-bedroom 451sqm house on a double 2150sqm section was designed in 2000 for Australian philanthropist David Thomas and his late wife Barbara by noted Brisbane architect Andrew Wiley in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. The couple called on Australian-American interior designer, the late George Freeman, for the interiors and local landscape architect Ralf Krüger for the gardens of the trophy house.
The property has a second vacant section next door on Suburb Street. While O’Hagan couldn’t name a price range, he anticipates interest well above the CV when the deadline treaty closes on May 18.
The Park Street property includes an art gallery wing and specialised storage for artworks. Photo / Supplied
In the few days since the estate came on the market last week, O’Hagan said there has already been interest in the trophy house from Australia and Singapore, as well as New Zealand.
“This will attract interest from overseas, it has the widest lake frontage of any residential home in the Queenstown town centre,” he said, adding that the high-density zoning on the desirable street gave the property multiple future development options.
The owners’ Thomas Foundation has donated millions of dollars to environmental causes and O’Hagan said their “under the radar” work in Queenstown included replanting the public land on the foreshore across the road from the house in native species.
The most expensive house in Queenstown is a mansion on 10 Pinnacle Place, which is asking $35m. Photo / Supplied
The three-bedroom main house features an art gallery wing with specialist art storage facilities, a commercial-grade wine cellar and a heated, cedar-lined ski room. The adjoining one-bedroom studio was offered as an artist-in-residence home, O’Hagan said, but buyers are already eyeing that part of the property, as well as the adjoining empty section as having the most potential for development.
“You can reconfigure this in multiple different ways. You cannot replicate this holding, it’s a once-in-a-generation property. You could retain this as an estate, holding it for future development,” O'Hagan told OneRoof.
“It’s attracting high net worth individuals who want a trophy house, but equally likely to attract interest from people who want to increase the density.”
Records could be broken when a luxury mansion on the hills above Queenstown sells. Premium real estate agent Hamish Walker has a $35m price tag on the 900sqm Mason & Wales Architects-designed stone mansion at 10 Pinnacle Place, which is also attracting interest from global buyers.
Walker also reported the sale of a glass and cedar four-bedroom house on a two-hectare lot on River Valley View, in Wyuna Preserve, above Blanket Bay in February. It sold after just six weeks on the market, but the price, which Walker reported as “well, well north of the RV [of $6.11m]" has not yet appeared in the records.
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