An abandoned and “barely standing shop” in a remote King Country town has been snapped up for $20,000, with the vendor netting a $9000 gross profit after buying it just four months earlier.
Ruapehu District Council appears to have sold the property on Ngarimu Street, in Ohura, by tender at the end of last year as part of its abandoned sales directive, where it sells off land on behalf of owners who don’t pay their rates.
The derelict property, which is on the town’s main street, last changed hands for $11,000 – below its RV of $14,000, OneRoof records show.
But just months later the property which, according to its listing, is “an old shop, old like really old, barely standing up old,” was back on the market.
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Ray White listing agent Nicoleen Wessels says the former corner shop came back up for sale after the person who bought it last year changed their mind and needed to sell.
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It was purchased by a Kiwi living overseas.
Ohura is in a flood zone and Ruapehu District Council won’t allow owners to install a septic tank, which Wessels says prevents anyone from building there.
The cheap land is usually picked up by people who park self-contained campervans or caravans on the sites.
Wessels says there are several transportable set-ups like this in the town.
People who buy sections in the flood zone, like this one on Ngarimu Street, usually park self-contained campers or motorhomes on them. Photo / Supplied
Wessels says sections in the small town, which is a 45-minute drive from Taumarunui, usually sell for around $40,000 for a 500sqm site.
At the moment nine of Ohura’s 100 or so properties are listed for sale on OneRoof. Prices range from $40,000 for a section to $425,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home on 7.2 hectares, which recently sold. A renovated two-bedroom, one-bathroom home on a 683sqm section on Kahu Street was sold this month. It had an asking price of $275,000.
The former Ohura Post Office sold to out-of-towners for $295,000 in March. Photo / Supplied
Property Brokers salesperson Cameron Elliot says semi-retirees and retirees from Auckland and Hamilton are wanting to get out of the cities.
In March this year, he sold the former Ohura Post Office on Ngarimu Street for $295,000 after being transformed into a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home to people looking to move to the area.
“Some of them are buying to go live in full-time straight away, some of them are buying as a bit of a bolthole to move down to later. I guess the attraction of it is isolation essentially.”
Elliot says renovated properties like the old post office are proving the most popular.
Houses in the main town are in the flood zone, but some near the old prison and on the outskirts of town such as some on Kahu Street are not, he says. These properties were built before the council brought in the rules which now require anyone wanting to build in the flood zone to get resource consent.
Ohura was a bustling town between 1930 and 1970, but the closure of the state-owned mines in the early 1970s caused many businesses and community services in the township to close, leaving behind a raft of empty buildings.
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