Two real estate agents from opposite sides of Auckland, and from competing brands, have paired up to complete an Omaha property deal.
Omaha Precision agent Di Balich has been working with Paul Neshausen, from Barfoot & Thompson’s St Heliers office, to market a property in coastal Glendowie, overlooking Karaka Bay.
Balich’s Omaha sale is conditional on the sale of her buyers’ home at 18 Peacock Street, Glendowie, which is being marketed by Neshausen.
“‘Helping me, helping you’ sums it up,” Balich said in a newsletter this month to the hundreds of well-heeled clients from Auckland and around New Zealand and Australia on her database.
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“We, as agents, like to expose properties to the widest qualified pool of buyers. My respected and renowned friendly competitor Paul Neshausen is marketing a very special property on behalf of one of my buyers who has a conditional offer subject to its sale for one of my Omaha properties.”
Balich told OneRoof that she and Neshausen had worked on another deal a couple of years ago and kept in touch.
“He’s very honest and upfront, and pretty active. We’re like-minded and a lot of Omaha property owners are from those eastern suburbs.
“It’s a bit like Survivor – you pick your partner, pick your alliances. We’re both working in the interests of the vendor. It’s the way of the future for agents with a bit of foresight,” she said.
Neshausen agreed. “It’s a good way of doing business, it’s the way forward. You have to find an agent who is honest and not egotistical, and it works,” he told OneRoof.
The 1980s Glendowie home was designed by Michael Thomson, of Architectus. It has recently been upgraded by the owners. Photo / Supplied
“I had response from two people immediately. It’s a collaboration, you’ve got to try as you don’t know people’s circumstances.”
“We sold a house together in Kohi about 18 months ago. Their offer on my house was conditional on selling their Omaha house.
“So to do this on Peacock is nice payback for Di,” he said, adding that the four-bedroom 1980s Glendowie house on an over 3500sqm section with a CV of $6.8 million was likely to fetch high $6m.
OneRoof records show the property – designed by Michael Thomson of the award-winning firm Architectus – was bought a year ago for $5.95m, and Neshausen said it had since been “zhuzhed up” with a new deck, carpets and paint.
“It’s all done on good faith and honesty, there’s no commission sharing or anything,” Neshausen said.
“This is the approach in a very fickle and tricky market,” Balich added.
She said that while summer in the rich-lister beach town had been busy, with lots of enquiry from seriously qualified buyers, they were weighing up their timing before committing.
A four-bedroom beach home for sale at 144 Omaha Drive, in Omaha. Photo / Supplied
“There’s a bit of uncertainty, some people feel it hasn’t hit the bottom yet and some people who want to do the Omaha shuffle are waiting for the bright-line test to go back down [from the current 10 years] so are working out their tax implications.”
She added that some vendors were holding out for a better price, citing buyers offering, for example, $2.9m to vendors looking for $3m.
“They won’t budge. It’s a Mexican standoff,” she said, adding that vendors were not stressed and so were not prepared to give their properties away. “Omaha is still undervalued.”
The suburb certainly slowed down in 2023. Balich said her figures for Omaha showed just 23 sales for the year, down from a typical 50 a year, and with more than half of those coming from under-$3m transactions.
“The number of under-$3m sales hasn’t changed much, but we had just one $5m sale, two just under $7m and one under $9m.”
Balich said a beachfront French-style three-bedroom house at 7 Kutai Lane, which she is marketing with a set sale closing February 7, will be looking for over $6.5m while a near-new four-bedroom house at 57 Taumata Road, one back from the beach, and a third she is listing later this week at 67 Taumata Road, will be around the $5.6m to $6.5m price range.
A near-new bach at 57 Taumata Road, Omaha. It's back on the market after selling in 2021. Photo / Supplied
She said a brand new four-bedroom house on 144 Omaha Drive she listed just before Christmas, developed by local builder Henri Berkel, is the best buy for value in Omaha, looking for around $4.5m. It has a set date of sale closing February 8.
Bayleys agent Victoria Turner said that after a tough year for sales over $3m, properties at that end have started to move this summer.
“I was involved in four sales in November and December for deals, two of them over $3m and two under. And over the summer we’ve had another property go under contract, a conditional sale, north of $3m.
Turner said an entry-level bach, a 1980s place that was asking for between $1.7m and $1.8m, sold in just two weeks over the holidays to a family who had come up to start their search and snapped it up.
“We have 24 listings, that’s pretty healthy. Confidence in that $3m-plus had stalled, but there’s definitely more optimism and movement,” she said.
“It’s not panicky, it’s pretty cautious. There’s also been a resurgence in high-end coastal properties out of Omaha, places like Leigh.”
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