Hard-fought auctions last week show there are buyers out and about in Auckland once again, some of whom have plenty of cash to spend.
At Ray White Mount Eden’s auction last week, a West Auckland family snapped up a three-bedroom home in Mt Eden for $2 million just minutes after selling their home in Green Bay at the same auction.
Ray White Mt Eden agent Robyn Ellson, who marketed both properties, said the family had been looking to make a move into the inner-city suburb, and she had worked with them to help make that happen.
“The buyers were my vendors for a property I sold at auction five minutes before. Their home sold for $1.4m and then they bought this one,” she said.
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“They were selling at Green Bay and I had been working with them to get them in Mount Eden and I had the perfect house for them.”
Ellson felt that the drop in new listings numbers was having an impact on sales activity. “We’re finishing up June with a 100 per cent success. We’re getting into a real tight supply period and it seems like we’re shifting a bit back into a seller’s market,” she said.
“I think we’ll stay in this period right up until the election if supply remains tight.”
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Increased competition has led to some intense auctions. A renovated Peter Sargisson-designed mansion in Epsom sold at a Bayleys’ auction last week for $5.522m after a marathon contest between four bidders, who in the end were going up in $1000 and $500 increments.
The property, marketed as being on arguably the finest, most expensive and prestigious street in Epsom, sold for $1.472m above its 2021 CV after 40 minutes of ping-pong bidding.
“It was a great auction,” says Justin Haley, Bayleys national auctioneer. “We had four bidders in the room, which means there was $20m worth of cash floating around in the room, which is a good sign [for the market].
“There was solid bidding through to $5m, then we paused, the property came back on the market at $5.18m and then the bidding pushed out to $5.522 so it travelled a long way.”
A three-bedroom home on Burnley Terrace, in Mount Eden, was snapped up for $2m by the Castleford Street vendors. Photo / Supplied
A grand home on Golf Road, in Epsom, sold under the hammer at a Bayleys auction for $5.522m – well above its 2021 CV of $4.05m. Photo / Supplied
Haley says Bayleys is getting bidding on about 70% of auctions which shows there is a “wee gurgle” of confidence in the market, unlike a year ago when there was nobody showing up to bid in Auckland.
Bayleys agent Sarah Liu said the auction was exciting and that the house had undergone three years of renovation at huge expense to the previous owners. “Even the market’s not really hot today but for this house we had over 120 groups visit and attend open homes or private viewing.”
She said potential buyers liked the location which was close to the park and the fact the home was already done up as people did not want to do time-consuming renovations. They also liked it was in the double grammar school zone and only minutes to top private and public schools.
Liu had marketed the home with four bedrooms, three living areas and three bathrooms as a “grand mansion” on 716sqm with classic vibes and extensively updated luxury. “Nature embraces the whole house and sun streams in all day.”
Another lengthy contest, this time at Barfoot & Thompson’s auction rooms, saw a house on Woodward Road, in Mount Albert, sell under the hammer for $2.03m.
The property sold under the $2.775m CV but still made a tidy $1m increase on when it last sold in 2017 for $1.75m.
The home was beautifully renovated, in a good location for schools and close to a train station, said auctioneer Marian Tolich.
“It was [in] excellent condition and there were multiple bidders on that one, although we did negotiate with the top bidder – we paused the auction and negotiated for some time to come to a figure that the owner was happy with.”
This home on Woodward Road, in Mount Albert, sold for just over $2m at a Barfoot & Thompson auction. Photo / Supplied
Tolich thinks there were four bidders in the room with three actually bidding: “It took ages. I think that auction was 40 minutes.”
The auction started off exciting, “bang, bang, bang” with bidding beginning at $1.5m, but ran out of puff when it came down to the last person and that’s when the negotiating began. “Once we got to $2m it took another 15 minutes to get the rest of that.”
Longer auctions are how it is at the moment, Tolich said. “There’s a lot of buyers out there that are bargain hunters and they think they’re going to get it for a certain figure and then there’s usually one or two who are happy to pay a fair price for it and then we have to work with that one buyer that it came down to to get them up.”
She said that while the property sold under CV it was a good price for the location in Mt Albert, and she says most properties are selling below CV. “The CV is the council valuation for rates, for land value. People get disappointed when they sell below CV but it’s not relevant.”
Barfoot & Thompson agents Anna Copeland and Jacqui Ding marketed the property as having a motivated vendor who said to ignore the CV and website price guides.
The freehold property featured a “glamorously” renovated original bungalow and a newer addition with double-glazed windows added.
The location was near the train station, buses, and in zone for Mt Albert Grammar School and Gladstone School.
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