An abandoned holiday home in Marlborough’s Queen Charlotte Sound sold today for $285,000 – more than double its $140,000 CV – after a fast and furious six-minute long auction.
Bayleys listing agent Georgia Ryan said there were 20 bidders for the house on a 4060sqm waterfront section, in Snake Point, with the winning bid coming from an overseas-based Kiwi family.
“Some people had been out and looked, but most were buying sight unseen because they know the area,” Ryan said.
“We were getting calls right up until 9pm last night, and three or four of those people were bidding,” she said, adding that the buyer was one of the first people to enquire about the property.
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“They’ve been looking for a property in the Sounds, they want a holiday home here. They were very cool, and very excited about their new project.”
The family are taking on a house structure, a Fraemohs design using interlocked timber, that was sold in “as is where is” after the build was abandoned more than 20 years ago.
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The owner has died and her husband, who hasn’t set foot on the property in more than a decade, had decided to sell it.
Like most of the properties in Queen Charlotte Sound, it can only be accessed by boat and could very well be one of the cheapest properties to sell in the tightly-held Queen Charlotte Sound.
Absolute entry-level properties in Marlborough Sounds are usually in the $400,000s, Ryan said, while those in Queen Charlotte Sound sell for slightly more. The median sales price for Marlborough Sounds is $800,000, according to OneRoof data.
The build started in the early 1990s – with the permit granted in 1992 and work beginning in 1994. The subflooring was signed off in 1997 and the exterior of the home was put up.
“It’s just a shell. It’s got four walls and windows and doors and that’s it,” Ryan said, adding that although there were water tanks, they were not connected and there were no other services, or formal track, to the property.
The property is an empty shell ready for the new owner to finish. Photo / Supplied
Properties in Queen Charlotte Sound are tightly held and usually passed down through family. Photo / Supplied
"You’d have to get it up to today’s building code. I didn’t hear estimates [from potential buyers] of what that would cost, but you’d have to barge or helicopter in materials.”
The property was advertised with a CV of $140,000.
However, bidding, which started at $100,000, quickly sped past that level, before the home was declared on the market at $240,000. After bids in lots of $5000, a bold bidder pushed the price up to $275,000, and after back and forth in $1000 lots a final bidder secured the place for $285,000 – six minutes after bidding began.
Properties in Queen Charlotte Sound are tightly held and are usually passed down through generations, Ryan said. The area is a 30 to 40-minute boat ride from Picton.
At the time of publishing, there were currently 13 properties in Marlborough Sounds listed for sale on OneRoof and five for Queen Charlotte Sound. Ryan said there were only a couple of plots of land in Endeavour Inlet and East Bay, and that land generally went for under $300,000.
Prices for completed properties in the area can range from $600,000 to well over $3 million for a luxury home.
Ryan earlier told OneRoof that the unfinished dwelling was the only property in Snake Point currently on the market and only the third property in the area for sale in her 12 years in real estate
“Of course, there’s a lot of work involved with building a place in the Sounds – but having something that’s already got the foundations in place in particular is really, really helpful. So, it’s a cool opportunity for someone who has the skills, time and energy to put into something like that, and probably the dream.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Marlborough Sounds
