The long-time lakefront home of former Olympian Ralph Roberts has sold under the hammer for $4.705 million to another sailor keen to teach his daughters the sport.
The two-storey home on Lake Pupuke’s most sought-after street was one of the homes that sold under the hammer last Thursday as part of Harcourts Cooper & Co’s big auction event, The Day. Fifteen of the 43 properties on the block sold, worth a total of $24.287m.
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The home on Manurere Avenue, in Takapuna, was well-known to locals for being the late Olympian sailor and sailing stalwart Ralph Roberts’ home of 35 years until he sold it five years ago.
However, the owner who bought the four-bedroom, two-bathroom from the sailing legend was relocating to Queenstown so decided to put the property up for auction.
Harcourts Cooper & Co listing agent Polly Wilson said it was great that it had been bought by another sailing family keen to make full use of the lakefront position. They had just sold a property in central Auckland and were really excited about living there and learning to sail with one of their daughters even encouraging her dad to bid at the auction.
The auction opened at $4m and after several bids paused at $4.4m. It reopened and sold for $4.705m – just $5000 over its RV.
“To secure a campaign for $4.7m after a three-week campaign. It’s textbook real estate you know.
The older home was in an enviable north-facing position on Lake Pupuke, in Takapuna. Photo / Supplied
The late Ralph Roberts at Lake Pupuke in 2012. Photo / Michelle Hyslop
“All the other agents were like, ‘wow you are ballsy to go to auction with a CV at that level’, but I suppose it’s just believing in the process ... it doesn’t really matter about the value if you are running a good campaign and getting good coverage.
“I think everyone was happy.”
A loud applause broke out in the auction room later that day when a modest two-bedroom brick and tile unit on Alice Avenue in central Orewa finally sold for $967,000 after a tough fight.
The eventual successful bidders had viewed the property at the start of January when it first hit the market and immediately decided to sell their East Auckland home so they could buy it.
Their home sold conditionally on Wednesday night, and they bought the centrally located home the next day for $967,000 after a flurry of small bids as low as $1000. The sale price also achieved more than $67,000 above reserve.
Harcourts Cooper & Co listing agent Angela Temata said there were two other bidders also keenly bidding on the deceased estate with one dropping out and another picking up where they left off.
“At any given time there two parties biding deftly against each other, so it was very fast-paced right through,” she said.
“It was such an active auction everyone in the room was entranced. Everyone was watching and listening to the bidding and what was going on and listening to the auctioneer and watching him co-ordinating it all. When the hammer went down, they burst into spontaneous applause.”
Temata said the spacious home had ticked a lot of boxes for a range of buyers including first-home buyers, young families and retirees. She said she really felt for both buyers who had missed out, especially as one of the couples had also just found a conditional buyer for their existing home that same morning to participate in the auction.
It was a similar story for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on Lake Road, in Belmont, which also had three people actively bidding on it.
The two-bedroom unit on Alice Avenue, in Orewa, was hotly contested due to its location and size. Photo / Supplied
A 1980s home on Lake Road, in Belmont, also sold under the hammer for $1.72m, which was above the reserve. Photo / Supplied
The home had been owned by the same family for 33 years and was being sold so the elderly owners could move into care.
Harcourts Cooper & Co salesperson Ilse Evans said the owners were genuine about selling.
Bidding for the home opened at $1.3m and it finally sold for $1.72m after 18 fast bids.
The property was announced on the market at its CV of $1.7m scoring the owners an extra $20,000.
“The bidding was consistent. There were no pauses for negotiation – we just sailed right through.”
Evans said it was a comfortable 1980s family home in a great location that people could just move into and slowly put their mark on over time.
Harcourts Cooper and Co auctioneer Andrew North said most of the owners selling at The Day had genuine reasons such as moving to the South Island or Australia, moving into a retirement home or because it was a deceased estate.
“There’s certainly a lot of people exiting the market and the money is not coming back into circulation.”
While the clearance rate of 35% wasn’t as high as they were hoping for, he said, it could be because Ray White had held a similar event a day earlier which meant there was a huge amount of stock on the market all at once.
“A lot of the buyers did sell with only one or two bidders, there were a couple that were good humdingers. It wasn’t a tough day; it was just a nice day.”
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