The listing promised it was the house “you will likely never want to leave”, and one buyer took that message to heart.
The four-bedroom 1950s brick-and-tile home on Whitehaven Road, in Glendowie, Auckland, was his childhood home and he snapped it up at auction this week for more than $2 million.
Chris and his wife Genna told OneRoof they had been looking for a large family home for months when they spotted a listing for his parents’ old house.
Chris was a toddler when his parents bought the property in 1987 and a teenager when they sold it years later.
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“We didn’t know it was coming on the market. We were on the hunt for a home,” he said. The couple had sold their house in June and were due to settle later this month.
But Chris said his childhood memories did not sway him. He arranged for a building inspection and made sure the house ticked all their boxes. Genna, on the other hand, was a bit more sentimental.
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“When this one came on, I was like, ‘this is the sign, this is the universe telling us’,” she told OneRoof.
“We were very lucky with the timing. To walk through it with Chris was just so amazing. He took me around the back and showed me the path his dad had laid. I learned things about him I didn’t know.”
Chris added: “My mum cried. She’s just so happy that we’re going to have new memories in the house.”
Chris said parts of the house were just as he remembered them, other features were new. “At the front, from the drive, it looks the same as when mum and dad had it.”
However, the vendors had added a swimming pool, landscaped the gardens, and created a new master bedroom. “My dad always had in his mind to put a wing out the back. He thought it would be a future master suite.
The new owner had no idea that his old family home, unchanged from the street since he moved out 18 years ago, had undergone such a transformation at the back. Photo / Supplied
The owners had opened up the house to the new pool and landscaped backyard, but much of the house still was recognisable from 18 years ago. Photo / Supplied
“Going through the new master, that was a breath of fresh air – that makes the house. And then, of course, the backyard with the pool was just amazing.
“But we had our checklist for the things that we wanted in our next home. I’m not overly sentimental in that regard, if it weren’t right, we wouldn’t have made the decision [to buy].”
Genna and Chris put a pre-auction offer to Ray White listing agent Sandy Hayer, who is known as Sandy in the Bays, but the vendors turned it down and went ahead with the auction.
The couple said they turned up to watch, fully expecting the price to soar past what they could afford. “We just turned up to be nosey. Then when it started swaying our way, we couldn’t believe,” Genna said, adding they were down to the last two or three bidders.
After a pause for negotiations, the property was sold by private treaty. Hayer could not reveal the price but said it was in the mid-$2ms. The property has a CV of $2.65m.
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