A house in Auckland’s sought-after, inner-city fringe that its owners once called the worst house on the best street, sold at auction yesterday after they abandoned plans for a renovation.
The property sold immediately after the auction on Wednesday in a private deal, so OneRoof cannot reveal the final sale price. But bidding by the four buyers in the room reached $2.265 million before it sold after private negotiations.
Bayleys agent Chris Batchelor, who marketed the three-bedroom house, said the price was “substantially above the passed-in number”. The pass-in number was $90,000 more than what the owners had paid as the market peaked at the end of 2020, although the property has a 2021 CV of $3.025m.
The agent said he had had phenomenal interest in the property. More than 50 buyers had viewed the property over the three weeks, with four active bidders in the room fighting it out.
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“We had two developers and two people buying for themselves. Bids were going up in $10,000 lots,” he said.
“It was a good result, and we have very happy offshore vendors. The new owners have great plans which will incorporate doing a high-level renovation.”
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One of the Sydney-based owners told OneRoof that while they were a bit sad to let the property go, they were really happy with the sale.
The couple had made headlines at the end of 2020 when they paid $2.175m for the run-down bungalow on a big section on John Street in Ponsonby. The sale price, a whopping $250,000 above its then CV, was an early indicator of the crazy boom in property prices as the market emerged from Covid.
They had planned to do a top-end renovation to make the most of the unusually large 556sqm site that backed onto a school’s playing fields. But after the husband took up a medical fellowship in Sydney, they instead re-roofed, insulated and re-painted, added a new bathroom and heat pump and began rewiring, and rented the place out for $800 a week.
The run-down John Street house made headlines in 2020 when it sold for $2.175m as the market was peaking. Photo / Supplied
Buyers, both home renovators and developers, were after the huge west-facing section, rare in Ponsonby. Photo / Supplied
Two children later they conceded they were not in a position to take on a huge renovation.
“We’re sad that we’re not turning it into the property we had the vision for. But we’re super happy to move on. We’re coming home next year and it’s nice to just find something, you know, that is better suited to our family.
“We’re looking in the neighbourhood and a bit wider, maybe Mount Eden. We’re pretty open and looking quite widely at the moment.”
Batchelor said that the three under-bidders, plus another six or so groups who had expressed strong interest in the John Street property were still looking.
“Buyers are very hungry. We do have a number of properties, and that $2m to $3m market is active again,” he said.
“We do have new listings coming on for spring and summer, and the enquiry is really good.”
While he does not know the exact plans of the new buyers, Batchelor had earlier told OneRoof that huge Ponsonby-style renovations, with extensions and high-quality finishes, could run to a couple of million dollars.
“But if you put money into the project, you know you can’t go wrong out the other end,” he said.
“This house was a superior proposition. Land is where the value is these days, as it’s one thing to create a nice home, but to have a nice bit of land with your home, that’s the appeal here,” he said.
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