An out-of-town owner has been rewarded for their brave decision to slap a $1 reserve on their train station apartment at the last minute after it sold under the hammer for $40,000.
The three-bedroom, one-bathroom inner-city apartment in the former Auckland Railway building known as Grand Central went to auction this week, but it was only three weeks into the four-week campaign that the owner took the risky move of advertising it with a $1 reserve.
Ray White listing agent Dominic Worthington said the courageous call paid off in spades as they went from having no interest at the auction to a lot overnight.
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“A week before we announced the $1 reserve we had nobody. It was just going to be a standard auction and it was like tumbleweed before we announced the $1 reserve,” he said.
“The amount of enquiry was like night and day. It changed the nature of the whole campaign from something that looked like it was not going to be as good as it could have been and he listened to us and trusted in the process.”
Worthington said the $1 reserve signalled to buyers that the owner was serious about selling and not just testing the market.
“There’s no ambiguity about it, there’s no second-guessing the buyer.”
Buyers don’t want to waste their time and energy investigating properties, engaging their lawyers and attending auctions unless they know they’ve got a good chance of buying it, he said.
The auction on Thursday opened at $1, before quickly jumping to $4000 and then steadily rising in mainly $2000 to $3000 increments. By the time it hit the high $20,000s, bids shrunk to mostly $500 each until a final $4000 bid secured the property for a professional property investor.
There were a total 34 bids and the other bidders included a business owner looking to house staff, a speculator and mum and dad investors looking to supplement their income.
There are about 230 apartments in the former Auckland Railway building offering budget-friendly accommodation. Photo / Supplied
However, Worthington said it was only a trusting vendor that would go along with the process and give the salespeople the “professional elbow to get on with the job”.
“My hat goes off to the courage of the vendor. If he hadn’t listened to us and trusted in the process he would have been struggling to sell it.”
Instead, the South Island vendor was ecstatic when he called to break the news. The sale price allowed them to pay off their bills and have a little extra on top, he said.
The Te Taou Crescent property was rented out as budget accommodation and needed a paint and new carpet.
The apartment had been marketed predominantly at investors and is currently returning $480 a week, but had a recent rental appraisal of $620 a week.
It’s the third one to sell in Grand Central this week. A studio apartment and a two-bedroom apartment sold under the hammer at City Sales auction room on Wednesday netting the retiring owner $17,800 and $28,000 respectively.
City Sales sales manager Scott Dunn told OneRoof that there was competitive bidding on both, and the apartments sold for “way way more” than what the owner had been expecting, adding she hugged everyone on her way out.
- Click here to find more apartments for sale in Auckland Central
