The owner of a flood-damaged Auckland apartment walked away “happy and relieved” after their property sold for tens of thousands of dollars more than what they had previously agreed to take.
The overseas vendor of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse on Ronayne Street in Parnell had advertised the property with a declared reserve of $89,000 and walked away with an extra $32,500 after it sold for $121,500.
The property was damaged in the floods earlier this year and the owner had been waiting months for the repairs, which are finally due to be completed in the next three to four months.
But the fact the property was being sold in an “as is, where is” condition didn’t stop four bidders from scrapping over it first in $10,000 bids and once it hit $75,000, in smaller increments of $2000 to $3000 at Thursday’s auction.
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Ray White salesperson Dominic Worthington said the bids were down to several hundred dollars each towards the end of the auction.
The owner was both happy and relieved the property had sold, especially because the sale price was about $15,000 more than what another townhouse in the same block sold for the week earlier, he said.
The townhouse on Ronayne Street had some minor flood damage from the Auckland storms earlier in the year that was still awaiting repairs. Photo / Supplied
Worthington said they had initially struggled to get people interested in the Ronayne Street townhouse and it wasn’t until they advertised the declared reserve of $89,000 about a week into the auction campaign that it started getting traction.
“We were struggling with [the] auction. The minute we declared the reserve amount that changed the game.”
Several other townhouses in the area on both Ronayne Street and nearby Cotesmore Way had recently sold for between $106,000 and $145,000 in competitive auctions, so Worthington said the key was drawing those underbidders in with an attractive price.
“That really put a line in the sand. There was no ambiguity, it had to be good enough to attract those vendors that were the underbidders of all those other properties that had sold.”
It was a similar strategy he adopted the week earlier with a three-bedroom apartment in the former Auckland Railway Station building.
The declared reserve of $1 was added a week prior to the auction and Worthington said the apartment literally attracted interest overnight. It ended up selling for $40,000 after a mix of bidders battled it out.
“It looks like I’ve had a run of declared reserves lately, but it’s only if people are open to the suggestion. In a market like ours that you’ve got sales around the $100,000 mark or less, it just proves to be a really effective strategy. With auction sometimes people have preconceived ideas about what the price is and nine times out of 10 they are wrong.”
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The Scene One apartment on Beach Road, in Auckland Central, sold for $65,000 which is double what the owner had been prepared to take. Photo / Supplied
Meanwhile, the owners of a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the Scene One Apartments on Beach Road doubled their money after five investors bid on it.
Ray White auctioneer Cameron Brain said the owners had accepted a pre-auction offer of $32,500 which is what the auction opened at on the market.
Several bidders pushed the price up and the apartment finally sold under the hammer for $65,000 two weeks ago.
Brain said the sale price was twice the amount the vendors had accepted in the earlier offer.
“I think they were pretty happy.”
Another Scene One apartment had a successful result last week when it sold to investors for $50,100, which was also above its reserve. The auction opened at $20,000 and was announced on the market at $45,000 with five people competing for it.
Brain said most of the people bidding on both the Scene One Apartments were investors.
- Click here to find more apartments for sale in Auckland Central
