A house in Red Beach on the Hibiscus Coast to the north of Auckland sold last month for $9.5 million – almost triple its 2017 CV of $3.7m.
The striking five-bedroom, four-bathroom home overlooks the ocean and features a heated infinity pool and triple garage.
The listing agent for the Chelverton Terrace house, Andrew Dorreen, from Precision Real Estate, did not wish to comment on the sale when contacted by OneRoof but he confirmed it had taken place last month, before the country went into lockdown.
The marketing for the property described it as elevated and near new – a clue as to why it had sold for almost $5.8m above its CV.
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The listing on OneRoof said the house boasting over 550sqm of living and offering “quite possibly the most exclusive and intimate beach views you will ever see on the coast”.
The house also features big windows and the use of concrete and stone throughout, including a concrete mid-foor, and includes all the mod cons, such as an integrated home theatre with electronic chairs, a projector and an “exquisite” sound system plus a smart system with automation, cameras and smart lighting.
The house on Chelverton Terrace was described as near new in the listing. Photo / Supplied
The sale is a record for Red Beach, where houses typically trade for $1.3m, according to the latest OneRoof-Valocity House Value Index figures.
There has been a marked increase in demand for property on the Hibiscus Coast, which includes Red Beach, Orewa, Millwater and the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, with buyers from central Auckland pushing up prices since the end of the national Covid lockdown last year.
Last month a house in nearby Millwater sold sight unseen for just over $2m.
Ray White agent Dean Tuffley, who brokered the deal for the five-bedroom home on Fennell Crescent, said the sale price of $2.002m was a record for an existing house in what is a relatively new suburb.
The new owners, a family from the North Shore, did as much due diligence as they could without physically seeing the property and had confidence because the house was still under a builder’s warranty.
This five-bedroom home in Millwater, Auckland, sold sight unseen. Photo / Supplied
“They’d been looking for a year to find the right property up there and they just know exactly what the homes are like; they know who the developer is, they know they’ve been really well constructed, they know what the lay out is, they’ve had the floorplan and the video.”
The sale was also perhaps a sign of the low number of listings around, although Tuffley said more would come in after lockdown.
And, there is still a lot of new stock being built in Millwater and throughout the Silverdale, Albany, Red Beach areas.
New homes being built on big freehold sites were competing against already built homes like 34 Fennell Crescent but, like the buyers of Fennell Crescent, not everyone wants to wait two years for the house to be built.
This four-bedroom home on Duncansby Road, in Stanmore Bay, Auckland, is for sale for $2.875m. Photo / Supplied
Across in Whangaparaoa Peninsula, Harcourts agent Karen Franklin only has one listing up on her website but says she has held others back because of lockdown and has another two or three that will come on in the next month or so.
The listing she has is for a big waterfront property in Stanmore Bay and is one of the few homes in Auckland that has a price listed - $2.875m – instead of going to auction.
Franklin, a top seller for Harcourts worldwide, says she is an anomaly among agents as she hardly ever does auctions. Of the 27 sales she has marketed so far this year, 13 have ended up in multiple offer situations anyway, she says.
One of the attractions of the coast is people who want to buy holiday homes and baches.
People who spend several months overseas, where they would easily spend $100,000 without batting an eyelid, are not going because of Covid so are hunting instead for somewhere permanent to holiday. “We’re seeing quite a few people buying holiday homes the family can enjoy, whether it’s mum and dad or their kids and the grandkids or the whole lot together.”
There was also a big surge of people after the first lockdown who can work from home at least part of the week.
Among them are families who are buying because they can get a section and give their children a traditional Kiwi lifestyle in an area with plenty of walks and a lot of beaches.
Baches are selling for big prices, too. In February, a friend of Franklin’s had an old bach on a half site on a main road with an incorrect title and no view in Stanmore Bay which she thought would be lucky to fetch $700,000.
That had 100 groups through in five days then an 11-way multi offer and sold for $824,000.
“It was just insane. That was a bach which two years ago you would have bought for $600,000 and you would have been happy with it.”
