A 1980s original overlooking the beach at Mount Maunganui, in Tauranga, sold under the hammer this week for $7.9 million – the highest sale in prestige beach suburb so far this year.
Two buyers battled it out for the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home on Marine Parade in the Bayleys auction room on Wednesday.
The auction opened at $6m and rose in mainly $100,000 increments before pausing for negotiation at $6.6m. It resumed just over an hour later, and the property was announced on the market and sold at $7.9m – above its RV of $7.695m.
Read more:
Start your property search
- Aucklanders buy Omaha beach spot for $135,000, sell it for well over $4.5m
- $1 billion hotspots: What it costs to live near the beach on Waiheke Island
- Pauanui’s most expensive bach: Wealthy businessman sells holiday home for $6.65m
Bayleys agent Conrad Doyle told OneRoof the new owner was from the Waikato but had links to the Bay of Plenty. They eventually planned to redevelop the 833sqm site and potentially build an executive home on it.
“It’s such an elevated piece of land and that’s what made the site super unique and special – that it’s a double front site. There’s not many on Marine Parade where you get that double wide frontage and the elevation of that land was also a special feature of the property as well.”
It was also located in the golden patch between Sutherland and Grove avenues, which further boosted its appeal to buyers, he said.
Doyle said there had been a lot of interest in the property and along with the two people bidding for it on the day, there was strong conditional interest waiting in the wings if it didn’t sell on auction day.
The elevated site had stunning sea and beach views. Photo / Supplied
The property was built in the 1980s and had some original features. Photo / Supplied
The listing photos showed a classic wood kitchen with grey and blue patterned lino and a chandelier and pink curtains hanging in the dining room.
Most buyers wanted it as a permanent home with some planning to bowl and rebuild, while others – including the underbidder – planned to carry a top-to-bottom renovation. There had even been a developer with plans to build three townhouses on it.
“A special site like this doesn’t come up often and they are not making any more, so it didn’t surprise me there was a developer in the mix as well.”
Doyle said it was good to see some traction at the top end of the Mount Maunganui market again after only two properties sold for more than $5m in 2023. He expected several more sales on Marine Parade in the next few weeks.
Bayleys Mount Maunganui branch manager Linda Greenslade said as far as she was aware it was the highest sale in the region this year. She put the top price down to it being on a big land size in a stunning spot, which was rare.
The second-highest sale in Mount Maunganui this year was another property on Marine Parade that sold for $5.5m in April, according to OneRoof-Valocity data.
An original three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 128 Marine Parade, in Mount Maunganui, is being sold by tender. Photo / Supplied
“They are always out there – there’s not an abundance of them – but there are buyers that will only act if there’s something very special that comes along and this was just one of those special properties.”
Greenslade said while most of the activity was happening with properties priced between $800,000 and $1.4m, there had been an increase in enquiry and sales in the higher end.
“But I would say this is the first time we’ve sold anything upwards of $7m this year for sure.
“The higher you go up, the lower the activity, but this top-end stuff, this really expensive stuff has just been very tough to move in the last year to 18 months. But in the last three months we’ve definitely seen some more activity in the $3m-plus bracket,” she said.
Just down the road at 128 Marine Parade, Bayleys salesperson Sharon Hall was also marketing another older home on a 751sqm section which is being sold by tender.
The deceased estate had an RV of $6.455m and, according to the listing, was a “rare opportunity to own a slice of paradise in one of New Zealand’s most coveted locations”. The home was in original condition and had been owned by the same family for 50 years.
It was one of more than a dozen properties on Marine Parade listed for sale on OneRoof ranging from a two-bedroom apartment with an asking price of $1.395m to a four-bedroom, three-bathroom residence that had an asking price of $4.945m and was under contract. Most of the other properties were for sale by negotiation.
Meanwhile the record sale for Tauranga continues to be held by an architecturally-designed three-bedroom, two-bathroom beachfront home Oceanbeach Road that sold for $11m in July 2022.
The sale trumped an earlier record the year before for the home of the late Sir Colin Giltrap, a five-bedroom penthouse in the Eleven apartment complex on Maunganui Road, for $10.2m.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Mount Maunganui
