The biggest house sale in Auckland’s wealthiest suburb this year was for $12.6 million, OneRoof can reveal.
The award-winning five-bedroom, four-bathroom Salisbury Street property, marketed by Edward Pack, of Bayleys Ponsonby, sold in May but had only just recently settled.
While Pack could not be reached for comment, he posted on LinkedIn that rarely did properties this good come to the market.
“The Salisbury Street property was one that I’ve long admired and was absolutely thrilled to be able to represent and market for my clients.
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“The property was recently sold and settled via an extensive and comprehensive campaign that yielded lots of interest and earned a spot as one of the top Herne Bay sales of the year.”
Herne Bay in Auckland is one of New Zealand’s most expensive suburbs and the property, on the northern slopes, was marketed as being rebuilt from the ground up. The property’s 2021 CV of $7.7m was taken before much of the recent renovation work.
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Pack’s listing said the Julian Guthrie-designed home was a master-class in sophisticated luxury: “It’s little wonder it was the recipient of a prestigious NZIA award for its extensive alterations and additions.”
The New Zealand Herald featured the property pre-renovations back in December, 2010, when it was for sale with a CV of $2.5m, and OneRoof records show it sold later that month for exactly that amount.
The 2010 story described the house as being a big, near-original circa 1900 villa largely unmodified since the 1950s with “superb renovation ingredients”.
There was a bull-nose return veranda, high stud, a marble fireplace, kauri floorboards, sash windows and some leadlights.
“Conjure up a vision of what you imagine a Herne Bay property owner sitting in their multi-million-dollar property is like. Now prepare to kiss it goodbye, as you’re introduced to spritely 87-year-old Agnes Heeney and her bona fide circa-1900 villa,” said the story.
The original home was enhanced and upgraded to modern standards. Photo / Supplied
The house makes the most of space and light. Photo / Supplied
The article went on to describe an original kitchen meat-safe and plenty of scrim walls, quoting the elderly owner as saying she had been there so long she did not think about her house being worth “all that money”, referring to the $2.5m CV.
While early modifications had led to an inside toilet, not much had changed since Agnes Heeney’s late mother, Louise Sasse, purchased the property in 1954 for 8000 pounds, said the story.
“It’s now a diamond in the rough, waiting for someone to polish kauri-laden floors and construction and restore glory hinted at by marble fireplaces and a bank of leadlight windows.”
Julian Guthrie Architecture’s story of their redesign was featured on the homeworlddesign website in 2022 in which they described their clients as purchasing the house on a large west-facing section as a gutted shell.
“The owners wished to create a family home incorporating the character villa with additions that complemented the original building.
Former owner Agnes Heeney in the Salisbury Street villa in 2010 before its transformation. Photo / Ted Baghurst
“Our plan was to place the bedrooms and utility spaces in the original villa, reinstating the detail and approximate layout of the original home. A long central hall has become a gallery space, and a powerful axial link from the front door to the living spaces and gardens to the rear.”
Pack’s listing said the villa had been transformed into a model of contemporary living spanning three “astonishing” levels.
Big $5m-plus sales in Herne Bay have been in decline over the last two years, according to Valocity, OneRoof’s data partner.
Last year there were seven and so far this year only four have settled, compared to 13 sales over $5m in 2022.
The top two sales since 2020 were both in Marine Parade, one last year for $24.5m and the other in 2020 for $23.5m.
Wayne Shum, senior research analyst for Valocity, said he did not think sales were down because of reluctant buyers, rather reluctant sellers were waiting for the market to pick up, partly because in the upper price bracket there was less on the market so fewer places for people to move to.
Chris Farhi, Bayleys head of insights, said at the top end, the buyer pool became shallower and top-end properties could take time to clear the market.
In Herne Bay, some properties sold quickly while others took longer.
“It seems to be down to the specifics of the property, like the design, and ones with all the usual attributes that resonate well with the market will sell promptly and there will be other cases where maybe it’s not quite resonating with the buyer pool that’s in the market right now and will take a little bit longer.”
It was also common at the top end to have long settlements as there could be complex arrangements in deals.
Farhi said there had been a pick-up in activity in Herne Bay since the reductions in the OCR.
“Quite often when people think about really high-end properties the old anecdote that gets thrown around is ‘oh, the buyers and the vendors and the parties in that market are almost insulated from funding costs because maybe they are wealthier’.
“But I think the truth is that quite often the parties that are transacting in those markets have things like other business interests that are also impacted by funding costs.
“They’ll have a slightly different pathway as to how funding costs are impacting them but they are quite often just as affected by funding costs and confidence and all the other things that you’re seeing in the mainstream market.”
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