A tired-looking villa on a large section in one of New Zealand's most sought-after school zones has sold under the hammer for $4.855 million - more than $2 million above its 2017 CV.
The seven-bedroom house at 4 Stokes Road, in Mount Eden, Auckland, was snapped up by a developer after frantic bidding at the Barfoot and Thompson auction yesterday.
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The property, which was marketed for sale by sales agent Cici Wang, sits on a 1047sqm parcel of land zoned Mixed Housing Suburban. Wang said in her listing: "The value is in the land. If you know the Auckland market then you'll know this is an absolute gem of which the likes will never be seen again."
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The auction had been brought forward after the vendor accepted a pre-auction offer of $3.55 million. Auctioneer Murray Smith told OneRoof there were 71 bids made on the property, with 17 registered bidders all competing to secure the site.
Nine of the bidders had registered to make bids online, but Smith they didn't get a look in, with the auction dominated by the eight phone bidders.
Wang said she had last sold the home in 2015 for $2.6 million. Last night's auction result has handed the vendor a profit, on paper at least, of $2.255 million.
Despite having no open homes because of the alert level three restrictions, she had 50 or 60 enquiries and 26 groups of developers collecting the geotech and survey plans. Some did not even go inside.
“All the developers knew the property. It had everything they want: double grammar, flat site and a good 26 metre frontage,” said Wang. “Everybody knows it from the famous coffee shop, Olafs, over the road. They really like the location.”
The buyer lives locally, but told Wang that he didn’t have a detailed plan in mind for what he would do with the site. Bidding had been intense, but the buyer who made the pre-auction offer missed out by only $5000.
“Everyone was expecting to go over $4 million. We were very very surprised at the price. The neighbours are very happy at what it’s done to Mount Eden prices,” Wang said.
She said that the $4800 per square metre is a record for Mount Eden, Epsom and Remuera, where the average for development sites is $3000 to $4000, and on Stokes Road had been $2800 to $3300 per square metre.
Demand for development sites has been building. This week Barfoot and Thompson agent Kevin He achieved $3.385 million for a 2428sqm property in Blockhouse Bay zoned Mixed Housing Suburban. The result was $1.485 million above CV.
5 Matata Street, in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, sold this week or $3.385 million. Photo / Supplied
Developers are also prepared to stump up big money for large pieces of land in good location. Developer Gibbons Co's deal to buy a 2525sqm property in Remuera for $8.6 million went unconditional last week, and a large section of undeveloped land in the CBD sold this week for $6.9 million at a mortgagee sale.
Ray White Commercial director Finn Hurst, who brokered the Gibbon Co deal, says that his division at Ray White was focused on finding land for developments and worked with residential agents to find suitable properties, with many deals being off-market.
Auckland sales ahead of last year
The latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand figures show that despite the market pause for lockdown, Auckland sales in the seven months to July are already 1.7 percent up on the first seven months of last year - with an additional 209 properties sold.
Bindi Norwell, chief executive at REINZ, said: “No one could have predicted just how the residential property market would be impacted from Covid-19. Even just a few weeks ago, people were still predicting that the next few weeks might look more like a post-GFC environment, so to have this level of turnaround already is surprising.
She added that across the country, the number of houses sold July were more than in March.
“Normally March is one of the busiest months of the year. It just goes to show what a strange year 2020 has turned out to be,” she said.
With buyers, sellers and agents seamlessly transitioning to online transactions, Norwell is expecting August to be just as busy.
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