A grand home in Auckland’s Remuera is this year’s top sale, a new OneRoof study shows.
The meticulously restored five-bedroom mansion on Victoria Avenue sold for $15.6 million in June, according to OneRoof records.
The 663sqm house, which sits on a huge 2580sqm site and comes with a tennis court and large outdoor pool, had been marketed through last year by Graham Wall Real Estate.
The year’s second highest settled price is $12.5m for a completely refurbished four-bedroom house on Karori Crescent, just around the corner from Auckland’s dress circle Paritai Drive in Orakei.
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UP Realty agent Peter Cleave, who brokered the deal with Myles Cleave, said the property sold within two weeks of its listing in March, but like many top-end properties had a long settlement period.
The sale price of $12.5m for a house on Karori Crescent in Auckland's Orakei is the second highest this year. Photo / Supplied
He told OneRoof that since then he had done a few other deals at similar price points, all of which were subject to confidentiality clauses and long settlement periods.
“You’d be surprised at the number of people with that amount of money to spend. They already live in pretty nice houses, so they’re reasonably fussy about what they’re looking for,” he said.
OneRoof examined every recorded and settled sale in the eight months to the end of August this year.
Records show there were 50 sales of over $5m in that period compared to just three for the same period in 2020, and 94 for the whole of 2020.
A house in Ridings Road, Remuera, Auckland sold for $7.52m. Photo / Supplied
Of the 50 sales, four were for land earmarked for development and one was a farm. The rest were residential or lifestyle properties.
Sales of $5m-plus accounted for just 0.16% of total recorded sales so far this year, while sales in the $2m to $4.99m price bracket accounted for 5% and sales in the $1m-$1.99m price bracket accounted for 28%. Sales of below $1m still made up the bulk of recorded property transactions for the eight months to the end of August - 66%.
$6.5m for a renovated house in Queenstown's Kelvin Heights was the top sale price out of Auckland. Photo / Supplied
For the whole of 2020, sales of $5m-plus accounted for 0.3% of the total number of recorded sales, while those in the $2m to $4.99m price bracket accounted for 4% and sale of $1m to $1.99m accounted for 24%. Sales of below $1m represented 70% of total recorded sales.
Last year's highest sale price was $24m for a luxury waterfront mansion in Auckland's Westmere that was bought by Zuru Toys owner Anna Mowbray. The country’s top residential sale price ever is still $38.5m, for a house on Auckland’s dress-circle Paritai Drive and neighbouring Huriaro Place, brokered back in 2013 by Wall.
Wellington's top sale price was $6.5m for a house in Hobson Street, Thorndon. Photo / Supplied
UP Realty’s Peter Cleave brokered the country’s third highest sale, with colleague Jo Johnstone, of $7.52m for a modern five-bedroom masonry home on Ridings Road, Remuera, which settled in late January.
Johnstone, who also brokered a $5.905m deal with Josh Nixon, for a Takutai Street property in Parnell said that many of the “steady stream” of buyers for the properties were still looking.
“A lot of these sales are under the radar at that level, they’re not on the market. It’s not just in Remuera, we’re seeing huge growth in the eastern bays, it’s a real lifestyle choice. Properties in Glendowie are looking at $4m, for cliff edge you’d be seeing $7.5m for special ones,” Johnstone said.
Lockdowns earlier this year hadn’t slowed top-end buyers.
A house in Tirohanga Avenue, Remuera sold just after March's lockdown for $7.5m. Photo / Supplied
The sale price of $7.5m under the hammer for a gracious Roy Binney-designed five-bedroom house at Tirohanga Avenue, Remuera, just squeaked in after this year’s March lockdown, said Ray White Remuera agent Thomas Farmer, who marketed the property with Simon Siddells.
“We didn’t know what to expect, we’d only had one weekend of open homes. We’d had 73 inspections, there were six registered bidders and it sold under the hammer.
“There are definitely some people still looking at that $7m to $10m bracket, the supply is not huge.”
Barfoot & Thompson agent Cindy Yu, who brokered two $6m-plus deals in Auckland’s Parnell, says that there are simply not enough listings in the inner-city suburb.
Mana Lodge, the house formerly owned by the late Sir Paul Holmes on Douglas Road, near Hastings, Hawke's Bay sold for $5.2m. Photo / Supplied
She said that while a rare 1518sqm site on Saint Georges Bay Road sold to a developer for $7.2m (plus GST), a third of the nine bidders at the March level 3 online auction were buyers looking for a family home.
Another property Yu marketed with Linda Galbraith in Awatea Road, Parnell, went for $6.8m to a family.
Two other $7m-plus sales were $7.12m for a former hostel on Shelly Beach Road, Saint Marys Bay, pitched at developers for its 1600sqm site and apartment zoning, and $7.1m for a stylish Hamptons-style house with a pool on Waiheke Island’s Matapana Road, Palm Beach.
Only two properties outside Auckland sold for more than $6m in the first eight months of the year, with a further five selling for more than $5m.
The top South Island sale was for a newly renovated four-bedroom house on an almost 1500sqm site on Peninsula Road in Queenstown’s Kelvin Heights, marketed by Luxury Real Estate’s Nick Horton and Terry Spice, that sold for $6.5m.
A waterfront home on Oceanbeach Road, Mount Maunganui, sold for $5.6m. Photo / Supplied
A house in Wellington’s Hobson Street, Thorndon, became the capital’s most expensive sale when it sold for $6m in a deal brokered by Tommy’s Phil Mears.
Two sales in the Bay of Plenty settled over $5m: a spreading estate with an avocado orchard and lodge on Jess Road in Tauranga’s Plummers Point enclave sold by Harcourts agents Jeanette Hamlyn and Bob Watt for $5.6m and a brand-new house on Mount Maunganui’s Oceanbeach Road that Bayleys agent Kay Ganley sold for $5.6m
The former Hawke’s Bay estate of the late Sir Paul Holmes hit the headlines last month when the sale price for the Douglas Road property in Poukawa sold for $5.2m.
An equestrian estate on Napier Road in Whakarongo, Palmerston North and a large property on Ballantyne Road, Wanaka both also topped $5m.
The lowest sale price so far this year was $25,000 for a 1763sqm plot of vacant land in Nightcaps, Southland, that was advertised as an opportunity to live off the grid.
