- Auckland’s top property market sees record listings, with prices between $20 million and over $50m.
- Buyers are waiting for initial sales to set benchmarks, causing slow movement in the market.
- Agents report interest but note buyers’ hesitance due to properties selling below capital value.
Buyers at the very top end of Auckland’s prestige property market were playing a waiting game in 2024, holding out for other buyers to make the first move.
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A record number of properties hit the market asking between $20 million to well over $40m, while some off-market listings were seeking over $50m, OneRoof understands. Two sold for over $20m, but the rest are still looking for buyers.
Agents who have been selling these top properties told OneRoof that while plenty of buyers have expressed interest in the properties, they want something else in this bracket to sell first to set the high stakes.
Terry King, co-owner with his wife Diana of Remuera Real Estate Register, has been marketing a luxuriously renovated five-bedroom Roy Binney-designed house at 532 Remuera Road with an asking price of $32m since January.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from people who were pre-qualified. They had to answer my question ‘could I take it that your budget is in excess of $32m?’ before they could [see it],” King said.
“But, like the rest of the upper end market, it’s hard to get anyone to react at the moment because they know nothing else has sold. All the other properties, from $18m to $30m that were on the market at the beginning of the year are still there.
The renovated mansion at 27 Marine Parade, Herne Bay, had renewed interest at the end of the year, but still no buyers. Photo / Supplied
An estate at 228 Remuera Road, Remuera, has been on the market since October 2023 looking for $29m-plus. Photo / Supplied
“That’s not to say the properties aren’t worth it, we have evidence for their value. It's just no-one is actually committing themselves.
“When there’s a decent Remuera sale, all the others will sell.”
King added that it doesn’t help that the mostly foreign buyers shopping at this price point see that the Remuera Road property’s CV shows at just $12.5m - and that gives them pause.
“This year, most of the sales in Remuera have been for less than CV. For the majority of foreign buyers, they hang on to that because the published CV is their only hard evidence,” King said.
“That’s been a hindrance to the market this year. And then people are reluctant to put their house on the market because there have been so many stories of places going to auction and not having a buyer.”
The agent blames a general sense of slow momentum in the country this year.
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“There’s been a general lack of momentum, people who have been away and come back say ‘gee, New Zealand seems so lackadaisical’, almost in a bit of a sleep," King said.
Ollie Wall of Wall Real Estate, who since May has been marketing property developer Kurt Gibbons’ renovated waterfront mansion at 27 Marine Parade in Herne Bay that’s looking for $40m, as well as another at 228 Remuera Road that has been looking for $29m (that one has been on the market since October 2023), said that the top end of the market is feeling the lack of buyers from China.
Wall set a Remuera record price of $29m with his father Graham Wall back in December 2021, but the agent said the market has notably changed in the past year or so. Back in 2017 the pair sold the mansion of property developers Paula and Simon Herbert for $27m.
“When we sold the Herbert place it was undoubtedly a different time. There were Chinese arriving in New Zealand with money fresh from China and wanting to spend it,” Wall said.
“Now there are very wealthy Chinese well established in New Zealand, but they’re not competing with the rest of China, they’re just competing with Chinese who are already here.”
He added that while the agency had seen a recent spike in interest from Americans, they've not put any offers on paper yet.
“These people have the budgets, $20m to $40m to $60m. Or they don’t even have budgets. They’re people who trade a lot, they’re used to big numbers, they’re used to taking risks and looking at markets, whether it’s property or not.
Entrepreneur Diane Foreman and broadcaster Paul Henry have had their 33 Arney Crescent mansion on the market since September. Photo / Supplied
A restored mansion at 226 Remuera Road, Remuera, has stayed on the market as the vendor is keen to sell. Photo / Supplied
“They’ve got analysts that work for them and they’ve decided that if you’re going to make a big business [deal] in New Zealand, now is probably the time to do it,” he said.
And while earlier in the year, Wall had told OneRoof that buyers were sitting on their hands waiting to see if anyone else makes the first move, that mood has changed now.
“It’s a bit like trading stock. They don’t want to buy when it’s still on its way down, they want to buy it when it’s going back up. The sophisticated businesspeople are reading the market and are ready to take action,” Wall said, adding that even buyers who had looked at the properties earlier in the year were coming back with renewed interest.
“We’ve come close. But as we say in our office, that doesn’t mean anything. We say ‘close is only good when you’re dancing’,” he said.
In November New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Paul Sissons, whose $21.84m sale of an Italianate-style house on Paritai Drive in March set this year's house price record, re-listed a five-bedroom mansion on 298 Remuera Road with colleague Karen Moore. The pair had first listed the property in April, not long after Moore closed a $20m deal for Grant Dalton’s former house on Victoria Avenue house (the year’s second highest price) but then paused marketing in early July.
“We were dealing with a couple of interested parties, so we rested it while we went through the negotiating process. They were doing their due diligence, but for one reason or another the home didn’t meet all their requirements,” Sissons said.
“This time around people now have more confidence, people are looking at where their investments are and saying ‘OK now there’s another option [in property]’.”
Notably, Sissons said, there was interest from a different group of buyers from those who were looking earlier in the year.
“Another train pulls up to the station and more people get off,” he said. “People are at different times so as time goes on, different buyers come out.”
A pair of waterfront houses on 25 and 25A Park Avenue have a combined CV of $30m. Photo / Supplied
A mansion on 298 Remuera Road, Remuera, has relisted to attract a new set of buyers. Photo / Supplied
Sissons said it is the same for the palatial modern house at 92 Paritai Drive, Orakei, for which he and colleague Nico Zhang had had a tender closing in early December. The property, which has a CV of $19.5m, had been on and off the market with different agents since May last year, at one point asking $30m, but Sissons said quite different buyers have been looking this time.
“I think these sales will all happen next year. And we are talking to other clients in that $20m bracket who are thinking about coming to market next year,” he said.
Ray White agent Steve Koerber, whose planned May auction of a restored mansion at 226 Remuera Road was overturned by a conditional offer, said that his vendor is still very keen to sell. The property had been on the market in 2023, but had not found a buyer.
“One of our strategies is to not come off the market. You can’t sell a secret,” Koerber said.
“There are a lot of ex-pats who visit New Zealand through the holidays, and we’ve had a couple of people through in the last few months that have flown in from overseas.”
He said many have been putting off making a decision.
“They’ll come to a point where they have to make a decision, and if they’re lucky we’ll still be for sale.”
One of the highest profile properties launched this year was the 33 Arney Crescent mansion of entrepreneur Diane Foreman and broadcaster Paul Henry that came to market at the end of September.
Listing agent James Doole of Barfoot & Thompson has not put a price on the meticulously renovated home, which has a CV of $12.4m, but Henry in a promotional video for the couple’s home said: "You'll have to be rich, it is fabulously expensive,” later saying "it's in the top 0.3% of homes in the country, if not the best home in the country."
A pair of top-end properties have stayed on the market all year.
Sotheby’s colleague Aaron Reid is still marketing a pair of Takapuna beach front properties at 25 and 25A Park Avenue. The pair of houses had a combined CV of $30m and were being sold with an option to buy a third adjoining property. They went on the market in January and are still looking for buyers.
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