A fire-damaged South Auckland home sold at a mortgagee auction this afternoon for $430,000.
The three-bedroom property on Derrimore Heights, in Clover Park, was snapped up at the Ray White sale after fierce bidding.
The auction kicked off with a bid of $150,000, then quickly escalated. Ray White auctioneer Ben East declared the property was on the market at $365,000, but got an extra $65,000 out of bidders before bringing the hammer down,
A total of 90 bids from some of the 21 registered bidders were placed over 10 minutes.
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The property, which has a 2021 CV of $850,000, was badly damaged in a second fire after the mortgagee, a second-tier lender from Australia, had listed it for sale.
Ray White Manukau co-owner Tom Rawson said the purchaser was a property trader who had previously renovated a fire-damaged house and planned to "renovate, rejuvenate, repair" and resell.
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Rawson had spoken to the new owner before the auction and he had told him he was confident he could fix it. "He's looking to bring it back to life."
While some fire-damaged properties needed bowling, Rawson said everyone interested in this particular property felt it could be saved. There were no developers interested.
"There was enough to work with to renovate it. It was a big job and not for the faint-hearted, but 21 of them were going to have a crack."
He put the huge turnout down to the fact that buyers knew it was seriously for sale being a combined mortgagee and fire sale. "People aren't going to waste their time getting committed to it and that's the crucial thing - making sure people aren't wasting time with unrealistic owners."
Ray White listing agent Rubal Singh told OneRoof ahead of the auction that he suspected fires at Derrimore Heights had been deliberately lit.
Buyers in action at the Ray White Manukau auction on Wednesday. Some 90 bids were made over 10 minutes before the Derrimore property sold. Photo / Supplied
The property's gutters and downpipes were melted in a suspicious fire at the start of the year. Photo / Supplied
The first fire broke out in January after the first week of open homes, but the damage was superficial, and the agent was able to fix it with paint.
However, the second fire destroyed the vacant home completely, and the listing was withdrawn for around six months, while the mortgagee decided what to do with it.
“They decided they don’t want to do anything with insurance. It’s a loss anyway to the mortgagee and they will just write it off,” Singh told OneRoof ahead of the auction.
The house was relisted last month, with the updated listing photos showing broken windows, singed walls and ceilings, and melted gutters and downpipes.
Singh, who had marketed the property as a “diamond in the rough”, told OneRoof that he had been verbally assured the damage wasn’t structural so the property could be rebuilt.
The agent said he had experience with selling fire-damaged homes and mortgagee sales, but this was the first time he had a property that embodied both sets of unfortunate circumstances.
“This is a fire damage and a mortgagee so it’s like the worst-case scenario and it seems like people love it.”
He told OneRoof last month that he had received 10 enquiries within 24 hours of the listing going live, some of whom thought they could make a “quick buck” from it.
The cross-lease property has a CV of $850,000 and was in a quiet location in Clover Park.
Earlier this year a partially burnt home on Paul Crescent, in Fairfield, Hamilton, sold for $332,500 – almost half its RV of $550,000.
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