A top-of-the-line home in one of Auckland’s wealthiest suburbs is pulling in buyers worried about cliff-top living.
The five-bedroom house at 8 Rawene Avenue, in Westmere, is listed with agents Ollie and Graham Wall, of Wall Real Estate, and is expected to sell for around its 2021 CV of $10.4m.
“We’ve had people from Herne Bay looking because there’s a rock wall on the waterfront and stone retaining walls up to the infinity [pool]. You’re not going to have your house or pool dangling off a cliff. It’s volcanic rock of Meola Reef – it’s not going anywhere,” Ollie Wall told OneRoof.
He also noted that the property was the only big family house for sale on the waterfront at the moment. “There are lots of living rooms and space for three or four kids to run around. You don’t get that a lot on the waterfront.”
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OneRoof records show that there has been just one sale on the street, a renovated three-bedroom house on a 720sqm non-waterfront site that went for just over its CV of $4.8m in March.
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The property has also been substantially renovated since the owners bought it 12 years ago for $4.4m – another plus in the current market, with Wall saying top-end buyers were steering clear of anything that required more than a kitchen tweak or simple decorating touches.
Wall said the owners had extended the house out towards the sea, adding an infinity pool, steps down to the flat land on the water where they upgraded the boatshed to an entertaining area. They also built a two-bedroom apartment over the double garage to make a family compound of 542sqm of house on the large 1176 sqm section.
Buyers from other cliff-top suburbs are drawn to the rock wall and volcanic setting of Meola Reef. Photo / Supplied
The owners did extensive renovations to the house, adding a two-bedroom apartment, extending the living areas and adding an infinity pool. Photo / Supplied
Wall said that the $8m-plus buyers have started to re-appear this month after a very quiet March to May. “Most people are pretty clued up, they’ve got their finger on the pulse. We saw everyone sit on their hands for a little while, but now the sentiment is we’ve seen the bottom and now is a good time to buy."
He added that vendors were not quite at the “buy now, sell later stage” but “a few are happy to buy at the bottom, take six months settlement and sell in a better market in spring”.
Wall agrees with other agents who sell top-end real estate in the central Auckland suburbs, Waiheke Island and expensive lifestyle estates further out that the winter hiatus, not seen since before Covid, is already starting. Agents told OneRoof that this year moneyed clients who missed out on international travel through three years of Covid were going all out.
The waterfront boatshed which looks out over Meola Reef was upgraded in the renovation. Photo / Supplied
The house is one of the few on waterfront Westmere to go on the market in the past few years. Photo / Supplied
“Instead of the usual month, they’re pulling the kids out of school for three months. With the cost of business class fares, they want to make it worth their while,” one agent said, adding that many top agents are following suit and heading to northern summers while their clients are away.
Wall said number 8 is likely to sell around its CV, leaving the two records for prices paid on the street intact.
In May 2020 the street saw Auckland’s highest sale for the year when a waterfront home formerly owned by the Kiwi director of Shrek and the Chronicles of Narnia, Andrew Adamson, sold to former All Black Ali Williams and billionaire ZURU Toys owner Anna Mowbray for $24m. The couple have since bowled the house and embarked on an extensive new build designed by Ponting Fitzgerald architects with input from television design star, The Block NZ presenter Shelley Ferguson.
Three months later tech start-up entrepreneur Sharon Hunter and former Tauranga mayor Tenby Powell sold their striking modern waterfront home for $17.68m.
The house’s claim to fame is that it had been rented by Hollywood action star Jason Statham and his partner, model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, while he filmed the blockbuster killer shark movie The Meg in Auckland in 2016.
It had been on and off the market since that time with a price tag of “around $20 million”.
- 8 Rawene Avenue, Westmere, is for sale by negotiation
