A brand new architecturally-designed house in Auckland’s Westmere received such a strong pre-auction offer the vendor pulled the auction this week, happy with the $4.925 million price.
Bayleys agent Cristina Casares says the interest in the house on Fife Street was so strong she almost had the unusual situation of multi pre-auction offers after the listing had only been live a week.
She thinks that’s because there is not a lot of stock out there and this was a free-standing four-bedroom, two-bathroom home over two levels designed by Studio John Irving Architects and situated near the Herne Bay border.
“I had really strong interest from the beginning so I did a few viewings before the open home and then at the open home on Sunday I had around 75 people through so it was quite high.”
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That resulted in the pre-auction offer and the vendor instructing the house be taken off the market.
“It was almost going to be a multi offer pre-auction offer because as I called people back to let them know that I sold it there was someone else that also wanted to put a pre-auction offer.”
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Casares says selling the house brand new was an interesting exercise for her because nobody had come armed with a CV or estimates from different property websites.
“I was then able to say ‘well, how much would you pay for it, what is your feedback? The range was actually quite broad but there was quite a lot of interest.”
The house is built to high quality specs with Miele appliances and is wired for solar if someone wants to put that in.
“It has underfloor heating all around the kitchen area, central heating and cooling in the house, really high spec.”
The property makes good use of space and light. Photo / Supplied
People liked that it was not only brand new but was stand alone, because a lot of the brand new houses at the moment are terraced homes or townhouses, Casares says.
“So this one is brand new, it's in a good location, it has double garage, it doesn't have any shared driveways or anything like that, and really beautifully built.”
The people viewing were from mixed backgrounds, including people downsizing and young families.
Casares says she's only had a pre-auction multi offer situation only once before but says people appreciate quality, and this house was done with a lot of love and no corners cut.
In an interview with OneRoof before the sale, the house's designers, Studio John Irving Architects, said the homeowners' brief was simple. “They asked for a nice four-bedroom family home that made good use of the space available. It was a major win getting this one its own driveway,” the project lead told OneRoof.
“We put large windows on the upper level – almost in a patchwork pattern so that the house didn’t look too uniform and linear.”
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