A West Auckland mansion that hit the market a year ago with a price tag of just under $9 million sold last month for $6.6m, OneRoof can reveal.
The seven-bedroom home on Kauri Point Road, in Laingholm, in the Waitakere Ranges, was sold as deceased estate.
The listing agent, Paul Sissons, of New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty, confirmed the $6.6m sale price to OneRoof.
"At the end of the day, it's a beautiful property. The New Zealand family who bought it are really looking forward to living there. They are over the moon - it's quite special," he said.
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He added: "If this house was in the middle of Remuera, you'd be paying $25m."
The property, which has a CV of $9.5m, had struggled to land a buyer. It had dropped in price from $8.975m to $7.5m and then to $7m, before selling in May.
The late owner had paid $9.55m for the house in 2016 - the highest amount ever for a home in West Auckland.
inside the Laingholm trophy home. The new owners are said to over the moon. Photo / Supplied
The trophy home, which sits on a 7000sqm-plus estate, was built by a Japanese billionaire in 1994 and recently given a makeover.
Earlier this month agents told OneRoof that the top end of the market in West Auckland had performed well, despite the challenges faced by the Laingholm mansion.
Just before Christmas last year, a buyer paid $6.9m at auction for a five-bedroom 700sqm Mediterranean-style home on a 1.68ha estate on Huia Road, in Titirangi.
Another seven residential properties in the West Auckland have sold for more than $3m over the last 12 months.
Research published by OneRoof this month showed that the top end of the residential real estate market in New Zealand had been going strong, largely untroubled by factors like higher interest rates and inflation which are besetting those lower down the property rung.
Analysis from OneRoof’s data partner Valocity showed sales in the $10m+ bracket tripled in the last year and the number of $5m sales have also jumped, with most high-end sales being seen in Auckland and Queenstown along with New Zealand’s sought-after coastal areas.
James Wilson, Valocity’s head of valuations, said buyers of $10m homes were often people capitalising on huge equity gains seen over the past few years and trading up.
“It seems extreme trading up from a property worth $5m to $10m but it really is the same as someone trading up in a lower value location, it’s just they’ve got a few more zeroes at the end.”
But Wilson said $5m or $10m didn’t buy what it used to in top Auckland locations like Remuera and Herne Bay. “They are not your clifftop mansion that once upon a time $5m properties would have been in New Zealand,” he said.
Valocity head of valuations James Wilson says the number of big sales has ballooned. Photo / Fiona Goodall
“They are not going to be wide water views at that price bracket – that world has well and truly changed.”
The OneRoof-Valocity found that between 2015 and 2019, the annual average number of residential properties selling for $5m and above was 100, while the annual average number of $10m-plus sales was 11. By 2020, the number of $5m-plus sales hit 211, 16 of which were in the $10m-plus bracket. The total value of sales in the $5m-plus bracket for 2020 was $1,413,846,992 – almost double the total amount spent on top -end properties in 2019.
The top end did even better in 2021, with the number of $5m-plus sales jumping 51% to 334 and the number of $10m-plus sales reaching 32. The amount spent in the top price bracket was a whopping $2,353,581,301, but still only 0.3% of Kiwis’ total spend on residential real estate in 2021.
The bulk of high-end sales were in Auckland, followed by Queenstown, with others trending around coastal areas, such as Mt Maunganui and Papamoa in Tauranga.
