A rundown cottage in Auckland's Grey Lynn has sold for just over $1 million.
Ray White agent Keith Dowdle, who with Sandy Dowdle brought the three-bedroom property on Old Mill Road to auction last week, said that there were seven bidders in the room and called the $1.1m sale price a “strong result”.
The property has CV of $2.15m - $1.95m of that in the land - but Dowdle said that price feedback from the 40 groups who viewed the property was around $800,000.
Bidding at the auction quickly shot past that. “People thought they could get into Grey Lynn for $1m. It’s proof that if you remove price out of the equation it encourages bidders with a clear message it will be sold,” he said.
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Buyers were made aware of the original state of the 1920s concrete cottage and sleepout, and many could not get bank funding for a house in that condition, which limited the target to mostly professional builders or renovators, Dowdle said.
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“Bidding opened at $500,000 and never paused, going straight to $1.1m. There were two bidders past $1m, and they were pretty much going up in $10,000 to $20,000 rises," he said.
“The auction draws out the value. What happens is that people don’t believe the agent, they don’t care what the vendor wants, the only thing that matters is the other person in the room.
“They looked at each other and go ‘if you go, I’ll go’,” he said, adding that the experienced buyer was well aware of the potential market for the cottage, one of the row of iconic 100-year-old former council houses above Western Springs Park, that had been unoccupied for five years.
“The buyer does this as a job, he’s expert at this. It’s a good street, it has the view, there is scope here to do something amazing."
The historic cottage on Old Mill Road, Grey Lynn, cannot be demolished. It has wide views across Western Springs Park to the west. Photo / Supplied
Experienced builders and renovators knew that the house had potential for an upscale renovation, based on re-dos of other cottages on the street. Photo / Supplied
The level 560sqm site has wide views across the western suburbs, and photos showed an original kitchen and washhouse, with ivy creeping inside and a run-down sleepout. OneRoof records show the place last changed hands 25 years ago for $150,000.
An identical cottage along the road, which had been bought in 2016 for $1.475m, sold four years later, at the start of the post-Covid boom, for $3.3m after a stunning renovation. The architect-designed double-storey steel and glass addition created a striking four-bedroom home with a two-bedroom cottage next door.
Deeper into Grey Lynn, Barfoot & Thompson agents Kath Barnes and Jacqui Vaughan-Kells achieved $1.025m for a quirky 1990s house on Tuarangi Street that had no Auckland Council completion certificates.
Vaughan-Kells said the advertising copy saying ‘Million dollar land grab, Buy the land and the house is free’ worked, with buyers aware the house was being sold “as is, where is”.
The property had an asking price that matched its CV land value $1.040m (its total CV is $1.425m), down from its earlier February asking of $1.258m.
A 1990s house on Tuarangi Street, Grey Lynn, that never had an Auckland Council certificate of completion sold for $1.025m, less than its land value. Photo / Supplied
Barnes said the overseas vendors had had building consents for the house when it was built in 1998, but it had never received a final council CCC sign-off. They had since put in a brand-new contemporary kitchen with luxury appliances, and the property included a rare single garage and additional off-street parking
“That put the handbrake on anyone with [getting] bank funding. But our guy could settle straight away and moved in the next day,” Vaughan-Kells said.
“I think it would be the cheapest price for a stand-alone house in Grey Lynn. The vendors are thrilled.” OneRoof figures show the average property value in Grey Lynn currently stands at $1.751m, down from $2.495m five years ago.
The prices compare well to the $2.205m paid in August last year for a run-down bungalow in Point Chevalier. The three-bedroom place on Johnstone Street, on the desirable northern side of the waterfront suburb, just a few blocks from The Block 2021 houses, had a CV of $2.65m, $2.575m of which was for the land. The vendors had paid $2m for the 626sqm property nine months earlier.
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