A nearly-new four-bedroom home in Auckland's Mount Albert sold for more than $3.5 million within two weeks of hitting the market.
Ray White agent Lawrence von Sturmer, who marketed the award-winning cedar home on Norgrove Avenue with colleague Jo de Beer, said that while the sale price was confidential, the vendors received three offers over $3.5m.
“We had seven written offers. There were about 20 other people but as they were for offers under $3m, we’d said don’t worry,” he said, adding that the price, when it settles, is likely to be the top sum for Mount Albert this year.
Von Sturmer said that the house, which won a 2021 Master Builders House of the Year gold award and had a CV of $3.225m, struck a chord with buyers.
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“It is the ultimate long-term family home for the next 20 years,” he said.
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He said buyers were a mix of those who could make unconditional offers while others were subject to the sale of another house.
“It sold to Mount Albert locals, but we had interest from the North Shore, Kohimarama and Saint Heliers – it pulled everyone in.”
Ray White agent Ross Brader added that the property was viewed by 82 groups, part of a pattern of a busy April market, where, despite the school holidays, some $20m of properties changed hands through his office.
The house in Norgrove Avenue, Mount Albert, was completed in 2020 and won a Registered Master Builders Home of the Year award in 2021. Photo / Supplied
The owners used the first Covid lockdown to complete landscaping on the property, which backs onto Chamberlain Park. Photo / Supplied
“We urgently need more homes for all the buyers who missed out on our April sales. In fact we could do with another 10 or 15 listings right now and could likely sell them within two or three weeks,” Brader said.
Von Sturmer said buyers were not worried about the market.
“If you want a long-term home, you’re not worried about prices. But there’s not enough stock," he said, adding that buyers are open to looking at either new-builds or completely renovated older houses, as long as they don’t have to do anything to it.
The top price for Mount Albert, set in November last year, is $4.2m paid for a grand four-bedroom Edwardian villa on Lloyd Avenue – $1m more than it sold for 18 months earlier. A home and income on a 1146sqm site with urban zoning on Fifth Ave fetched $4m in June 2022 while a renovated five-bedroom bungalow with a pool on Allendale Road sold for $3.35m a year ago.
The award-winning home had a scullery attached to the designer kitchen. Photo / Supplied
One of the three living rooms. Photo / Supplied
The sale comes as OneRoof figures show the average property value of Mount Albert is now at $1.412m – 11.8% down on last year, but higher than the March median sale price for Auckland of $1.0006m, reported by REINZ. Across Auckland, they said, prices are down 16.6% year-on-year, and down slightly, 0.4%, on the month before.
The owners had earlier told OneRoof that they had bought the tired bungalow on 679sqm on Norgrove Avenue in July 2015. Records show the property changed hands for $1.146m and that the 278sqm build cost between $1m and $1.5m.
Builders Waller Projects completed the build in just six months, allowing the family to move in just before the first Covid lockdown of 2020.
“It was a great place for us to during that time, with the children, and we took the opportunity to complete all the landscaping and other finishing touches,” the owner told OneRoof.
The vertical cedar and painted brick home, which backs on to Chamberlain Park, has an entertainers’ kitchen with a separate scullery and laundry, a media room and another parents’ retreat by the principal bedroom suite. It was designed to be environmentally friendly.
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