- An Auckland house formerly owned by the agent's grandmother resold at auction for $1.88 million.
- Bidding started at $1.4 million and concluded after six minutes with a young couple winning the home.
- "In a year’s time, you’ll thank me,” quipped the auctioneer after the sale.
The agent who returned to sell his grandmother's house got $1.88 million for it at auction this week.
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Ray White agent Ben Ryken had picked up the listing for the smartly renovated four-bedroom house on Temple Street, in Auckland's Meadowbank, after he slipped a note into the new owners’ letterbox asking to look at the house his grandma had sold back in 2013.
His grandparents, Charles and Vida Glennie, had bought the house in 1967 for just $11,240.
Ray White auctioneer John Bowring raised a laugh from the six nervous bidders waiting for the auction to begin.
“I bet Grandma never thought her grandson would make more in commission than she paid for her house,” he quipped.
The kitchen after the renovation is now open-plan with an island. Photo / Supplied
The original kitchen hadn't changed from 1967 when the house was sold in 2013. Photo / Supplied
Bidding was fast and furious, starting at $1.4m but quickly escalating to $1.85m when it was declared on the market. After just six minutes, a final bid from a young couple brought the hammer down. “In a year’s time, you’ll thank me,” Bowring declared to the new owners.
Ryken said the buyers had been renting locally and were “over the moon” with their purchase. He said interest had been huge in the place, with over 85 groups coming through and a lot of repeat visitors. Many of them had read the OneRoof story about his grandmother and were delighted at the history of the house.
Ryken’s mother, Ronice, who moved into the house when she was three, was at the auction.
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“She got to meet the new owners and shared a few stories with them,” he said.
Ryken’s grandfather died only 10 years after buying the house, but his grandmother Vida stayed in the house until only a few months before her death in 2013.
“The house never changed one bit, from when we started visiting Grandma after I was born in 1995,” the agent told OneRoof when the house first went on the market in November.
“When they bought, it would have been the flashiest house to buy in the new suburb,” Ryken said. His mother has kept the original sale and purchase agreement, complete with pencilled calculations by accountant Charlie.
The then-modest three-bedroom house featured a pink bathroom, a cool floral wallpaper in the kitchen, and built-in shelving and a deco-style fireplace in the living room.
He said his grandmother lived a quiet life, meeting up with neighbours and shopping at the Meadowbank Shopping Centre. He has vivid memories of walking up to the shops with his brother Matt (also a real estate agent, in Point Chevalier) and wheeling the supermarket trolley full of his grandma’s groceries back down the few hundred metres to the house, before one of the brothers shot back to the supermarket with the empty trolley.
The living room now has French doors opening to the pool and outdoor entertaining area. Photo / Supplied
The original bathroom pictured when the house was sold in 2013. Photo / Supplied
“We would sit in the cafe and all the staff knew her and they knew all about us. She would give us a $5 note each and we could go to the stationery shop to buy comics or a bouncy ball.”
As a teenager, Ryken got to know the gardens well as he’d turn up with his mum to mow grandma’s lawns every week.
After the house sold for $724,000 in 2013, the new owner gave it a complete makeover, opening up walls, updating the kitchen and bathrooms, and adding a fourth bedroom, a room in the former carport and creating a deck. The current owners bought it in 2015 for $1.443 million, OneRoof records show.
Ryken said he was blown away by the changes to the house. The lawns he mowed are now the swimming pool, the former back door is now the front door (the front entrance became the ensuite bathroom), the bathrooms are glamorous and the kitchen is now part of a big open-plan space with an island.
“Now comes the hard part,” said Ryken. “We have to find homes in January for the five people who missed out.”
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