It's a dilapidated pre-1914 villa sitting on just 275sqm of land - but it is expected to attract lots of buyer interest.
The house is located on 105 Franklin Rd, in Freemans Bay, and isone of the closest residential homes to Auckland inner city.
Franklin Road is known for its Christmas lights display and properties there are tightly held.
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Even with worn floorboards, original scrim and sarking walls, stained wallpaper and peeling paint, the home could be a developer's dream with four big bedrooms, a long wide hallway and sunny yard with views to the Sky Tower.
The house, which has a CV of $1.38m, also sits at the city end of the road - with terraced housing options under the Unitary Plan. It is being auctioned on February 20.
LJ Hooker sales agent Wayne Espie says in the marketing for the property: "Do not be mislead by the trim exterior ... all is not well within."
Espie described the run-down house on the well-known leafy road as "a rare postage stamp of Auckland's most sought after 'dirt'".
"Hardened renovators, demolition specialists & developers - look in here - you may have met your match."
The home is sandwiched between a two-story character building owned by a local dentist and a glass-clad commercial building.
Espie would not comment on the listing, but one prospective buyer through the open home said the home was "begging to be restored".
"It's like stepping back in time, it's not often you get to go through a property like this," said one woman who did not want to be named.
"It's walking distance to the city and you can see the Sky Tower but the back garden is beautiful and sunny."
Locals who went through yesterday's open home said the elderly woman who owned the property went into residential care last year.
"She was very quiet and kept to herself but would be out the front talking to her pet birds," one woman said.
"The birds would talk to people walking past."
Top criminal lawyer Marie Dyhrberg QC sold three of the five villas she owned on Franklin Rd in 2017.
The row of character villas are directly opposite the house at 105 Franklin Rd.
Three of those villas, on slightly smaller parcels of land, sold for $1.43m, $1.33m and $1.2m.
