A storage locker in central Auckland sold for $200,000 at auction two weeks ago after fierce bidding from six buyers.
Ray White agent Marco Sahar, who listed the 31sqm storage locker in a carparking building on Fort Street, said it was one of only 18 in the block and one of the few in the city.
Interest was huge, he said, with 10 enquiries on the first day he listed the property online.
“It’s very unusual to get enquiry straight away. Over the three-week campaign we would have had 50 or 60 people asking about it,” Sahar said.
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The price surprised everyone, including the vendor who had owned the locker since buying an apartment in the next door Silo block in 2005. Feedback had priced the storage locker in the $40,000 to $50,000 range, and 10 buyers had registered to bid.
The Fort Street storage locker in the carparking building that serves nearby Silo, where studio apartments sell for similar prices. Photo / supplied
“The first bid at $45,000 was the reserve so it was on the market. Six people were actively bidding up to around $105,000 and then the final two people really pushed it to $200,000.”
With GST, the total price was $230,000, Sahar said.
The buyer lives in a nearby apartment block, but needed the space for storage for her tools and materials for her renovation business, Sahar told OneRoof.
The price was well over the $135,000 paid in 2019 for a smaller 19sqm locker. In the same building, carparks sell for $90,000 to $100,000 to nearby Silo apartment owners and the general public, he added.
The concrete block storage locker, fitted with some shelving, is almost as expensive as an apartment.
“Last year in November at the top of the market, I sold a 21sqm studio in Silo, smaller than the storage locker, for the same price, $230,000,” Sahar said.
“There’s always a market for storage in the city, as many apartments don’t have any, no carparks or just a 1m by 1m locker that can maybe fit a bike.”
A carpark in The Pacifica, in central Auckland, set the record for the most expensive place to park when it sold last year for $288,000. Photo / Alex Robertson
The price doesn’t break the record $288,000 paid a year ago for a carpark in the prestigious new apartment tower, The Pacifica on Customs Street, which in turn beat the four-year-old record of $265,000 for a spot in the Quay Regency apartment building on Auckland’s Quay Street.
Only apartment owners in The Pacifica could bid for the carpark, as not every apartment in the tower came with a carpark, and many apartment owners wanted extras. Annual compulsory valet parking fees of $5200 a year are in addition.
