A flat in South Auckland resold for an extra $39,000 just a month after a real estate boss bought it at auction last year to flip.
The one-bedroom, one-bedroom ground floor unit in a block of flats on Avenue Road, in Otahuhu, was bought by Hills Real Estate owner Rickhil Prakash at Ray White Manukau’s auctions in August last year.
Within hours of Prakash winning the auction for $291,000, the same property was relisted on his own agency’s website.
OneRoof can now reveal it resold in September 2022 for $330,000 and there was a contemporaneous settlement in November 2022. The September price is still significantly below its CV of $380,000.
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Prakash confirmed to OneRoof he sold the property a month later to an investor.
However, the $39,000 on-paper profit is only a small amount of what some property traders were making in 2020 and 2021 when they were buying and flipping properties in a couple of months for about $200,000 and more.
Hills Real Estate currently has a number of properties listed for sale on its website, but Prakash said they are mostly selling properties on behalf of clients and there aren’t many that have been bought to flip due to the current climate.
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“We can’t get deals at the moment because the stock level is very low and then the home buyers are coming in.”
Prakash told OneRoof last year that he had bought the property for himself and had bid for it over the phone.
“I buy as a trading company and I disclose that I’m an agent with another agency. I disclose that I might try to sell for a profit or a loss.”
The plan had been to sell the unit to a first-home buyer who might not have been able to bid unconditionally at the auction.
A top floor unit in the same block of flats on Avenue Road, Otahuhu, is for sale with an asking price of $430,000. Photo / Supplied
Meanwhile, a top-floor unit in the same block of flats is currently listed with Arizto agents Avi Pokharkar and Nikhil Sharma for $430,000.
The 1960s unit at 18/27 Avenue Road is being marketed at first-home buyers, couples and investors and, according to its listing, is a “rock solid opportunity to make that jump onto the property market”.
OneRoof records show the property last changed hands for $165,000 in 2015. It has a current CV of $365,000.
Prakash said he thought this was still a good price and was more likely to attract first-home buyers than investors due to it being on the top floor.
“A lot of first-home buyers are coming back because they know the market is corrected and they are getting a fair and steady price.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Otahuhu
