A sale of three neighbouring properties in central Auckland had a new win-win twist: two of the sellers got to keep their houses.
The sale of 17, 19 and 21 Huia Road in the popular city suburb of Point Chevalier went unconditional this week for $6,272,500 says Harcourts agent Aman Gulia, who brokered the deal to a developer.
The owners of 17 and 19 Huia Road (left and centre) had spent time and money renovating their houses. Photo / Supplied
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Gulia, who specialises in finding land for developers in the area, said: “I've signed over 40 listings in the last two months with combined value of over $150 million, which is unheard of.”
“My developer client was looking for a site and I found these guys who sold collectively,” he says. “The deal was done in just 15 days.”
The owners on Huia Road have a six-month settlement period and another two months to organise relocating their houses, so will continue to live there meantime.
The high density zoning in the very attractive city edge suburb of Point Chev is very attractive to developers. Photo / Supplied
The owner of No.19 said that the trio of neighbours had put their houses on the market three years ago, once work on the new tunnel connecting Point Chev to the airport was complete and the new density zoning of the Auckland Unitary Plan became operational.
But uncertainty around the election result killed off any deals then, he said.
Instead, the vendor renovated his 1940s ex-state house, getting it to “immaculate state, we put in so much blood and sweat. It had much more value.”
His neighbours at No.17 also spent at least five years adding value to their attractive 1920s bungalow.
When the first offers from the developer for the three properties was not to their liking, the pair went back to negotiate.
“We’d been there 15 years, we knew what the value was, Point Chev is just booming,” said the vendor at No.19.
“We got [the buyer] to come up and meet our price and we requested to take the house. We had 10 days to do due diligence. ”
The neighbour at No.21 did a quicker deal, electing to leave their house for the developer to demolish or move. The properties had combined council rating valuation of $4.925 million, but the house improvements were valued at only $150,000 to $200,000 each.
No.
17's owner said that it came down to “we like our house, and a developer doesn’t value it, so it’s a way to realise the capital in the house.
“We really didn’t want to sell, but we didn’t want to be living next to a four-storey apartment.”
The properties are zoned for the highest density allowed in Auckland terrace houses and apartments, and Gulia said the developer can use the long settlement period to finalise plans and consents, ready to start construction.
He had earlier told OneRoof that he had 300 developers on his books looking for sites to start building.
The sellers at No.17 and No.19 are already talking to house moving companies and scouting land in the country or beach-side to relocate their dream city houses.
The sale capped a good week for the vendor of No.19: he also sold the house he had bought in Warkworth only a year ago, getting $300,000 more than he’d paid for it.
He works in the construction industry and had looked at developing the three sections himself, estimating the site would take six three-story units, but this buyer could do more.
He’s been told by the moving company that there is a now surplus of old houses being moved off Auckland city sections as developers get stuck into the new building boom, with several of them saying they are too busy to take on his house move.
