A two-bedroom home on Auckland’s North Shore, which had been billed as “rough as guts”, has sold under the hammer for $620,000 after four minutes of fast and furious bidding.
The frank admission of the property’s shortcomings in the listing ad did not put off buyers, who were keen to snap up a bargain.
Bidding on the house on Frizell Street, in Beach Haven, started at an ultra-low $50,000 before quickly jumping to $300,000. The property was declared on the market $120,000 later and after 21 more bids, the hammer came down at $620,000 – $330,000 below its 2021 CV.
Listing photos showed the 1980s house was in a poor state, highlighting a rickety back porch and wall boards stripped back to their raw state, a kitchen with a basic sink and not much else.
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Ahead of the auction listing agent Charlie Brothers, of Ray White, had told OneRoof that first-home buyers – some with financial and DIY help from mum and dad – had expressed interest in the property. However, he had thought the house would be picked up by an investor or a tradie.
“Some people have no idea about the renovation costs, they’re just wanting to have a go. I’ve heard some of them quote figures of $60,000 or $75,000, some people are saying $200,000 to do it up. The figures are all over the place, but it depends how far you’d want to take the renovation,” he told OneRoof last week.
Brothers said there was an upside to a do-up: a tidy three-bedroom house across the road on a similar cross-lease site fetched $950,000 earlier this month, while last year a four-bedroom house on the same cross-lease site went for just over $1 million.
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“I’m just saying you do your homework and then the auction will tell you what other people think it’s worth. Where else do you get that privilege?”
Ray White Manukau co-owner Tom Rawson said that properties like Frizell Street were attracting people back to the market. “In a do-up, the renovator buys themselves a job and then gets a profit at the end. People are buying these do-ups now, they’re still popular, because at these prices the margin between a do-up and an already done place is much more.”
He highlighted the interest in a four-bedroom weatherboard house on Sterling Avenue, in Manurewa, which had been semi-stripped back to wallboard. The property sat on a 703sqm section with zoning for suburban density and sold for $725,000 – $195,000 below CV.
The kitchen in the Beach Haven house is basic and the walls have been stripped back. Photo / Supplied
Another fixer-upper at Sterling Avenue, Manurewa, was snapped up for $725,000. Photo / Supplied
Bargains can be had for apartments too.
An inner-city studio apartment with a $5000 reserve sold under the hammer last week for $36,500 after fierce bidding in the City Sales auction rooms.
Four bidders, three on the phone and one in person, fought out a fast battle for the studio apartment in the Grand Central apartments in Auckland’s former railway station.
It took 44 bids, some in painfully slow increments of $100 and $500, before the auctioneer finally brought down the hammer.
The buyer, a Russian New Zealander who wanted to remain anonymous, said he was buying on behalf of his wife who planned to build an investment portfolio. The leasehold property has an annual leasehold of $11,150, that includes body corporate and ground rent, and council rates of $1200 a year but earns a weekly rental of $350.
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