The luxury house is sold and the bags are packed, but in some cases the neighbours may not realise for weeks or even months that the house next door has changed hands.
Not even the real estate agent turning up in their deliberately unmarked car will give a confidential house sale away.
Dozens of properties are being sold in what is often described as confidentially or off-market , but what this largely means is it is done without being advertised online, in print or by holding any open homes.
Bay of Plenty-based real estate agency Oliver Road sells an exclusive number of properties through what it calls its “confidential collection” - where a select few owners of unique, high-value homes offer their property to highly-qualified buyers so they can sell it without public attention or prying eyes.
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Oliver Road director Cameron Winter, whose company specialises in selling high-end homes, said there are a number of ways of carrying out confidential deals and each agency has their own approach, but one of the key things about Oliver Road’s confidential collection is that all the properties are definitely for sale.
About one in six of the properties his agency sells is done so in secret and these properties are usually in the higher price range.
In some cases, the seller may list their property in the confidential collection before marketing it publicly, but in other cases the owner has specific reasons why their property sale isn’t made public.
“While we have sold homes for the likes of Phil Rudd and Simon Bridges and people like that, and those have been public campaigns, there have been plenty of others who we wouldn’t go about saying, ‘hey look we sold this’ and we wouldn’t even mention who they are – we are talking rich-listers and people like that.”
Winter said with a database of 3500 people potentially looking in the higher-end of the market, it is not too difficult to find buyers and remove the whole public part of the process.
He’s even had situations where the pre-qualified buyer has had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
If for some reason they don’t find a buyer, the property can be marketed publicly after that, he added.
A mansion on Remuera Road, in Auckland's Remuera, sold off market last year for $29m. Photo / Chris Tarpey
Highly prized: An view of the wealthy mansions in Auckland’s Herne Bay. Photo / Chris Tarpey
And while the property may not be advertised online and in print, the same rigorous process around bringing it to market including carrying out valuations, finding out more about the property through LIM and building reports and the price achieved still remains the same, Winter said.
“In the market that we operate, we don’t rely on smoke and mirrors and silly games and largely don’t rely on things like auctions to sell properties. Every property we sell is unique and high value and the sale prices that we get when we do sell confidentially are in some instances better, there is no pattern of them being worse for want of a better term because of any sort of lack of competition.”
Ray White Epsom salesperson Ross Hawkins, who sells high-end properties in Auckland and Queenstown, said buyers at the high end of the market often like to operate under the radar so people don’t know their business.
“They like to purchase and sell in this manner.”
Hawkins is currently working on a confidential sale at the moment and said this type of sale made up a “good percentage” of his business with the deals often happening “quite quickly”.
“The reason we can move property well under the radar and out of the usual marketing channels is the extent of our database and the extensive knowledge we have about the market and our clients' requirements.”
However, Hawkins said one advantage of selling out of the public eye is that it removes the stigma around the property being on the market for a long period of time, if it does take a while to sell.
Earlier this year Hawkins sold a luxury lodge on Forest Line Rise just outside of Queenstown for $25.75 million, breaking a new price record for the region.
The 920sqm, four-bedroom home sits on a 13,590sqm section in a gated community overlooking Lake Wakatipu and Cecil Peak and was sold off-market.
Hawkins told OneRoof at the time that he was doing “significant under-the-radar business” in lifestyle properties, with a lot interest coming from out of Australia.
Another record-breaking off-market deal was the $29m paid in December last year for a mansion on Remuera Road, in Auckland's Remuera. The sale of the 979sqm house, which sits on a 4188sqm section away from the road, was brokered by Wall Real Estate agents Graham and Ollie Wall. The agents have told OneRoof that they done multiple private deals for luxury homes in the suburb and in Herne Bay.
Ray White agent Ross Hawkins says he does a lot of under-the-radar deals. Photo / Fiona Goodall
An artist's impression of the luxury lodge in Queenstown that sold for a record $25.75m. Photo / Supplied
Bayleys Ponsonby salesperson Joe Telford admitted it’s difficult to sell a property without telling anyone, but said there are varying degrees of selling off-market and without public marketing campaigns, agents instead tap into their databases and networks.
Telford only sells about two to three properties a year under the radar, but said they make up a decent part of his income because they are usually properties in the higher $7m-plus price range.
Among those often wanting to keep the sale a secret are well-known identities or corporate clients such as bankers and accountants who don’t want photos of their houses online, he said.
“It’s probably a little bit more prevalent in the upper end in these exclusive suburbs.”
As well as listing properties, Telford also helps overseas buyers find high-end properties and recently took one buyer to view six properties in the Devonport and Cheltenham Beach area that were all selling off-market and priced between $7m and $15m.
“I think with the market changing the way it has been and people a little bit concerned about going to the market and not wanting the result they want, we’ve certainly seen an uptick of people being prepared to say ‘hey we will sell, but we don’t want to go to the market’.”
NZ Sotheby’s International Realty Waikato director Russell Thomas, who predominately sells lifestyle properties south of Hamilton, said selling a property confidentially has both pros and cons.
The upside is that a buyer who may have been actively looking gets an exclusive opportunity to view the property before going to market which can often result in a premium price, but the downside is missing the potential competition due to the lack of exposure in the market place.
In the market he operates in, confidential sales only happen a couple of times a year, but he’s recently sold properties on Nikale Street in St Kilda in Cambridge and Marychurch Road in Matangi this way.
The properties sold confidentially are usually in the higher price range for the Waikato, which is over $2m.
