The biggest house sales this year were for a clifftop mansion in Auckland that looked as if was built for James Bond and a modern lodge in Queenstown that will likely be knocked down.
10 Jackson Crescent, Mahurangi, which boasts a sunken lounge, dramatic circular media room, a 20m heated indoor pool, garaging for nine cars and a helicopter pad, was bought by an expat last month for "very close" to the $14.75 million asking price.
10 Jackson Cres, Mahurangi, sold for "very close" to the asking price of $14.75m.
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But the top sale was for house that was more modest - at least by rich-lister standards. The four-bed 450sq m home and the 14.6ha it sits on at 516 Ladies Mile, in Lake Hayes, was bought by Queenstown Council for $15.5 million (including GST) for development purposes.
516 Ladies Mile, in Lake Hayes, was bought by Queenstown Council.
Impressive as this year’s two prices are, they are quite a bit behind last year’s top sales, when developers Paula and Simon Herbert bought a house in Herne Bay for $27.7 million and a luxury Italianate-style house on Cliff Road, St Heliers, sold for $17.6 million.
The top five sales this year totalled $62.2 million - 22 percent lower than the total for the top five sales for 2018.
A property on the headland at 20 Omaha Block Access Rd, near Leigh, sold for $12m in March.
Several luxury homes with potential to break records were listed this year but are either still on the market or sold for less than what their owners initially wanted.
OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan says: "The top end of the market has felt the squeeze this year. The foreign buyer ban has reduced the pool of wealthy buyers that are in the market to buy and can afford to break sale records. Buyers tend to be expats who have made their coin overseas and are looking to return.
READ MORE: Inside Auckland's most expensive home
"Typically, what has sold for big money this year are exclusive waterfront homes or homes on large plots of land with development potential."
OneRoof data shows that the total value of sales for New Zealand is down 24 percent year on year. And the suburb that consistently racked up $1 billion of sales during the boom - Remuera - is unlikely to hit $900,000,000 this year.
27 Hanene Street, St Heliers, Auckland, which sold for $10.5 million
However, James Wilson, valuation director at OneRoof data partner Valocity, says despite the slowdown in the $3m-plus market, agents have started to report an increase in interest.
“Activity is strongest for luxury properties which offer high end, residential accommodation, as opposed to larger land holdings such as lifestyle or rural properties. This appears to indicate a preference for ‘lock and leave’ lower maintenance, rather than a larger land acquisition,” he says.
Other top sales this year include 20 Omaha Block Access Road, near Leigh, which sold in March for $12 million; 27 Hanene Street, St Heliers, which sold a month later for $10.5 million; 14 Aumoe Avenue, St Heliers, which sold for $10.2 million; and 9 Bourne Street, Mount Eden, which went for $9.5m.
An expat buyer paid $9 million for an estate on Waiheke Island owned by former Hanover owner Mark Hotchin. Hotchin had done considerable renovations to the 1.8 hectare estate (there’s a helipad, pool, gym, tennis court, separate guest accommodation) since he’d bought it at the end of 2014.
Waiheke Real Estate agent Warren Eade, who brokered the deal, says that the high end of the island has stalled since then, but, unlike at other luxury destinations like Queenstown, that wasn’t down to the big foreign dollars deserting the island in the wake of the foreign buyer ban.
“Foreigners didn’t ever buy much property in Waiheke, 95 percent of sales were to New Zealanders from all over the country or more likely to be expats from London, US or Asia, with just the odd Australian or Englishman.”
However, he does suspect that foreigners not buying in Auckland or Queenstown may have indirectly affected his buyers, who would then be unable to off-load their city properties to upgrade on the island.
Eade observed that there is still a flurry of billionaire activity, but mostly in Northland where they are building new luxury houses, rather than buying existing stock. Such opportunities don’t exist on Waiheke, where sensitive island ecology means restrictions on resource consents for development, waste water or even helicopter pads.
A country estate in Dalefield, near Queenstown, that sold for $8.375m in June, was the region's second highest sale.
NZ Sotheby’s International Queenstown agent Gerard Bligh, signed the South Island’s next top deal of $8.375m for a luxury country estate at 98 Domain Rd in Dalefield, between town, the airport and Coronet Peak, in June. The spectacular 536sq m home, built five years ago, was sold to a North Island buyer who plans to live there for most of the year. Bligh says that generally properties at that price level take around six months to sell, but he is seeing a pretty active spring and summer market and inventory is well down.
Only two other South Island sales cracked the $5m barrier: a 56 ha gated property in Hawea Flat achieved $6.325 and another modern lodge in Wanaka’s exclusive Heaton Park enclave made $5.75m.
Christchurch’s biggest sale had a lovely historic twist: the Victorian house at 83 Clyde Rd, Ilam, was once owned by New Zealand’s suffrage leader Kate Sheppard. It was bought by Heritage New Zealand back in March this year, but the sale was not announced until September 19 to coincide with the 126th anniversary of women winning the vote.
Only one other sale in the city reached $4 million, an April sale of 48 Clissold St Merivale, while the next highest sale, also in Merivale was $3.275 million.
The $4.85m price achieved for a modern house in Pyes Pa, built to resemble a Victorian mansion, was the exception in the Bay of Plenty, where most top sales are beach front Mount Maunganui.
Only in Tauranga did any other sales break the $4 million mark. Beach front properties in Mount Maunganui went for $6 million, another reached $4.175 million. Agents reported further sales of $6 million and $5.5 million, but these are yet to appear in council records. The biggest surprise of the year was a country estate in Pyes Pa Rd that went for $4.85 million in April.
Cameron Macneil owner of luxury real estate agency Oliver Road, who brokered the deal, said that it was an outlier in every respect for the Bay of Plenty, where the big sales are usually confined to the Mount.
“In the rest of Tauranga, $1.5 million to $2 million is the upper end, but things are a little bit random at the moment. Interestingly, it sold to a family from Wellington – a lot of our buyers are from there, Christchurch or Auckland.
“But returning ex-pats, who may have been away three years or 33 years, come back with international amount of money to buy here. We just sold an Otumoetai property for $3.5 million and they were first home buyers, Kiwis who worked in the tech industry overseas.
“A lot of them grew up here, or holidayed here, or their parents have retired here so they’re bringing kids back to be near mum and dad.”
Macneil says that the Auckland businessman who paid $4 million for AC/DC’s Phil Rudd’s Harbour Drive pad already had a place on Mount Maunganui that he was planning to demolish. But rather than go through a three year build, but he flicked it off for $3 million to buy one where the work was already done. Which explains how, a luxury new build a block from the beach on Muricata Ave, went for $3.6 million.
Macneil’s expecting records will be broken this summer as two “incredible” properties he’s about to list will likely go for over $10 million. He says that buyers are still there to pay those prices for the right property.
“They need to be really inspired, something they’re not going to find again, with attributes that are just not really repeatable.”
In Whanganui/Manawatu, two of the top three sales were in PalmerstonNorth’s Hokowhitu area, the coveted Ihaka St.
Number 16, on 1188sq m , whichtook the town’s top sale at $1.55 million, had a pool, dramatic landscaping and a hugewine cellar. 22b, on the waterfront, alate 1990s house on 1976 sq m of land,went for $1.45 million. And a country spread on 2.7 ha at 61 Sutherland Rd, Sansonwith views over the Manawatu to Kapiti Island achieved $1.51 million in June.
