A four-bedroom home on a huge section in Auckland's St Heliers has sold under the hammer this morning for $5 million - $350,000 above its 2017 CV.
Bidding for the two-storey house at 21 Edmund Street at the Barfoot and Thompson auction was intense, with two buyers - one overseas, one local - battling it out to secure the property, with the last 10 bids in $5000 increments.
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According to OneRoof data, the property last changed hands in July 2006 for $1.95 million, handing the vendors a profit, on paper at least, of $3.05 million.
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The agents marketing the property, Mark Peterson and Paul Neshausen, had described it as an "awesome, blockbuster family paradise".
The 1970s-built house sits on a 1303sqm section and boasts a heated pool, spa and cabana for summer entertaining.
Neshausen said the winning bidder had been looking for a family home since selling their own.
He told OneRoof that with only two registered bidders, the auction was incredibly competitive.
"The bidding started at $3.8 million and the increments were going up by $100,000 for ages, until it got to about $4.7 million."
Neshausen said there wasn't enough stock in the upper price range and the fact that 21 Edmund Street had an outdoor pool and sea views made it all the more attractive.
Another big hook was the professional "work from home" set-up, which was a common requirement at the moment.
"Suddenly the criteria for homes has changed. [Buyers] want a quiet and large area away from the kids for work."
Agents have told OneRoof that returning expats are putting upward pressure on prices in the $3 million bracket in Auckland.
At the start of the most recent lockdown, two Kiwis in Singapore drove the price of a Ponsonby bungalow to $2.311 million - almost $400,000 above its 2017 CV - and a Kiwi in London bought a villa in Onehunga for $1.9 million - more than half a million dollars above CV.
Hayden Stanaway, Bayleys’ director of Auckland and Wellington residential, told OneRoof agents were fielding more and more enquiries from returning expats waiting out their two weeks in quarantine facilities in New Zealand.
“There are 5000 people being processed every two weeks. Not all of them are trying to buy property but there’s a fair percentage there that do,” he says.
And Johnny Sinclair, Bayleys' national director of residential, said that while expats represent a small fraction of the Auckland market, the competition they were bringing was noticeable.
“Coming into the $2.5 million plus market, they [expats] don’t have a feel for what properties are worth. They are bucking the trend and are pushing prices up,” Sinclair said.
