- A half-built Remuera home was snapped up within three weeks of hitting the market.
- Listing agent David Rainbow says he received seven offers on the deceased estate.
- Local buyers fell in love with the site and plan to complete the house.
A half-built home on one of Auckland’s wealthiest streets sold within three weeks of hitting the market, OneRoof can reveal.
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Bayleys agent David Rainbow told OneRoof he received seven offers for the house on Seaview Road, Remuera.
The winning bid was made by Kiwi buyers who plan to complete the house, which had been abandoned decades ago and has never been occupied.
Despite its crumbling state, 47 Seaview Road is next to some of Auckland’s most expensive houses. Photo / Supplied
The garden is overgrown and almost jungle-like. Photo / Supplied
Rainbow said the buyers - one of whom is in the building industry - fell in love with the site “and are going to finish the dream”.
He declined to reveal the sale price, but his listing with colleague Harry Cheng called on buyers to ignore the CV of $2.8 million, of which only $25,000 is for the improvement.
He said one of the buyers had been at an open home for a neighbouring property when he spotted the overgrown site at number 47.
“His wife hadn’t seen the one next door so he was driving past and he said to his wife, ‘Look at this one down here, it’s absolutely amazing’, and a week later it went live – it was almost fate.”
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When OneRoof wrote about the house in December, Rainbow said the property was so overgrown an Indiana Jones movie could be filmed there.
“I can’t clamber through the jungle. It’s like Dr Livingstone, I presume, or Indiana Jones – an Indiana Jones movie could be filmed here very easily,” he said.
“It’s been built for no particular reason and never occupied. There’s no power on.”
The property, which was sold "as is where is" and sits on 1110sqm of land, was part of a deceased estate, which included nine houses scattered about Auckland and Waikato.
Trustees of the Jean Rawlinson Estate were handling the properties and until recently did not know there was even a house on the Seaview Road site.
The one-bedroom house has never been lived in and is a shell. Photo / Supplied
The property pre-dated code compliances so there was no record of what happened with the house but rates had been paid for about 40 years.
Rainbow said the house was well-built when construction began in the 1970s but did not know why work had halted.
“The bones are there, but the house hadn't been looked after or loved for a long time,” he said.
When the agent first visited the house, he could only access the top level because the lower level was overgrown. A kindly neighbour cleared the vegetation away in time for the open homes, which meant Rainbow could show the full house to interested buyers.
The land at the Seaview Road property sloped and was covered in bush but had a view across the valley to Arney Road and Arney Crescent. The land had never been cared for and there was no lawn.
Rainbow said getting seven offers in two weeks was fantastic.
He said he knew little about Rawlinson but understood she had died around 2019 and that when the trustees started tidying up the estate they ran into Covid. “It’s taken till now to actually say, ‘OK, we are now going to be winding up the properties’.”
He said the previous neighbours – who had lived on the street since 1987 – had never met anyone there.
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Remuera
