An elevated lifestyle property in Cooks Beach with impressive sea views has been snapped up at an auction for $4.5 million with the “thrilled” sellers walking away with an extra $1.6m.
The Bayleys auction for the Purangi Road property, which had a 2020 RV of $1.92m, was bought forward by a week after the owners received an acceptable pre-auction offer of $2.9m.
Bidding for the six-bedroom, three-bathroom home with multiple living spaces opened on Thursday at the vendor’s accepted offer before steadily rising to the final sale price of $4.5m.
Bayleys Waikato auctioneer Stephen Shale said the successful bidder was not the original party whose offer had prompted the auction to be brought forward.
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The bidding was taken over by two other parties with one bidding in $400,000 increments and the other in $50,000 lots.
The homestead, according to its listing, had been transported to its 3.2129ha location overlooking Cooks Beach and had been strategically placed amongst manicured lawns and private paddocks to ensure the new owners never lost their views.
Stand-out features included a 360-degree rotating French cast iron fireplace in the centre of the open-plan living, separate wings with the potential of running a B&B from one, as well as a separate studio.
Shale said the auction showed that with quality real estate, commitment and competition, they could get great results.
“To have three people (bidding) above $2.9m is a demonstration that [demand for] holiday homes is alive and well.”
The Purangi Road property is among some of the highest results for all Bayleys New Zealand’s brought-forward auctions and Shale’s highest so far this year.
A Whitianga Waterways property, which Shale auctioned last year, holds the record after selling for $6.25m - $2.55m above the acceptable pre-auction offer. Prior to that, the record had been held by a St Heliers home which sold for $2m more.
“About half of our brought-forward auctions go for more money at the moment, but usually it’s $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 $40,000 - $100,000 would be a lot.”
“I would expect they (vendors) would be pretty satisfied with the process, but it’s important that we brought it forward because if they had just sold it, they would have left a lot of money behind.”
Bayleys Whitianga agent Belinda Sammons, who marketed the property with Kylie Pullen, said the current owners were downsizing and “thrilled” with the result which would set them up for the future.
The successful buyer was a Bay of Plenty family who had purchased it as their holiday home.
Sammons said the property’s views were without a doubt what made it so special and from the house all you could see was the ocean.
“It was just a really nice position where it was. It’s still close to the beach, but away from the beach so it was private and quiet. That view was spectacular.”
“When you are at the house you don’t see the houses of Cooks Beach below, all you can see is the ocean so it was quite a unique position in how they had placed it.”
Earlier this year, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom Cooks Beach property, just a street back from the beach, on Riverview Road, sold for $1.5m - almost double its RV as demand for holiday homes in the area remains high.