A four-bedroom family home in Auckland’s eastern beaches sold at auction this week for $4 million - almost double its CV.
But the waterside 1970s-built house on Bramley Drive, in Farm Cove, is likely to bowled to make way for a dream home.
Bayleys agent Angela Rudling, who marketed the property with colleague Michael Chi, said there were five registered bidders for the auction on Tuesday.
Bidding started at $2.8m, then immediately jumped to $3.6m, with the property on the market and sold $400,000 later.
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Rudling’s vendor, who is moving into a retirement village, was pretty emotional about the price for his family home, which has a 2017 CV of $2.2m.
The property was listed the week before lockdown and is in an enclave of homes that have covenants that protect their water views, so the 979sqm site with zoning for suburban density caught the attention of developers and owner-occupiers.
The 1970s house one back from the beach on Bramley Drive has protected views of the water that cannot be built out. Photo / Supplied
“The price is a record-breaker for non-waterfront, and the auction bidding gave buyers the confidence that this is a good price," Rudling said.
“We had interest from people looking to land-bank, others wanting to develop, and families looking to bowl and build something beautiful.
“The buyers are locals who plan to build a beautiful new home for themselves."
She added: “We would dearly love another three or four of these properties to sell.”
An absolute waterfront five-bedroom house on the same street, Bramley Drive, sold for $4.75m in May. Photo / Supplied
The price is one the highest this year for the suburb. The top price of $4.75m was for a five-bedroom waterfront property on a 1363sqm site on the same street. Another property on Bramley Drive also sold for $4m in December.
Rudling said that repeated lockdowns were bringing people out to the area.
“There’s a huge drift out of the city to rural Clevedon and Whitford, or to the beaches. People feel they can breathe in the country, people who are sick of suburbia and are young enough to manage a lifestyle block.
“Then there [are] ones who want beachfront. In and out of lockdown, they’re feeling claustrophobic and coming out here from Remuera and the city.”
Rudling said that buyers with budgets of around $3.5m can get a nice house, “and something really special for under $5m.”
Prices for waterfront properties in Sunnyhills and Farm Cove are catching up with pricier suburbs like Bucklands Beach and Musick Point. Photo / Supplied
She said the market was held back only by a shortage of stock at those price levels, and estimated there was about half the number of properties as buyers looking.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in 22 years in real estate. Back then buyers were in control, now it’s vendors.”
While Bucklands Beach and Musick Point properties are the most expensive on the eastern beaches, with a rare few in the past selling for more than $7m, Rudling said prices for waterfront homes around Sunnyhills and Farm Cove were now catching up, particularly with buyers not needing to be in Macleans College zone, preferring instead the private Saint Kentigern College.
Ray White Howick general manager Greg Hornblow said that buyers in the eastern beaches area were there across all price points, with spring listings now starting to flow through.
“We’ve already got 82 auctions booked through until November, the signs are positive," he said.
“I wouldn’t say listings are double what they would normally be to make up for lockdown, but our sense is they will catch up. The big question is whether we will run out of runway before Christmas, but we’ll definitely have made up for lost ground by March.”
