A two-bedroom townhouse taken to auction with a reserve of just $1 has sold for $660,000.
A young couple picked up the two-bedroom new-build on McLeod Road, in Te Atatu, Auckland, on Sunday after competitive bidding at the Wallace & Stratton sale.
The auction was held outside the home in the McLeod Green complex, and had attracted a sizeable crowd: some investors, some first home buyers, but all hoping to snag a bargain.
Auctioneer Rob Tulp, of Apollo Auctions, kicked off proceedings hoping to get an opening bid of $1, but an eager bidder jumped in quickly with an offer of $100,000 - an early sign that buyers were going to have to open their wallets wide if they wanted to take possession of the home.
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A hard core of three to four buyers in the circle around Tulp kept the auction ticking along, with Tulp ably fielding the offers and encouraging the crowd as the price of the home pushed past the $600,000 mark.
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He even managed to encourage a blossoming romance or two and had jokingly warned the winning couple that he was unable to accept a written contract from their young son, who had seemed to want to take part in the proceedings.
Tulp brought the hammer down at $660,000, and the buyers were having their photo taken outside the house seconds later. The whole auction lasted just over 10 minutes, and although some of the bidders walked away disappointed, there was a sense that they would be able to pick up one of the four remaining homes in the 60-unit development.
Wallace and Stratton agent Mitchell Eades had told OneRoof before the auction that there was "no particular reason why this one has a $1 reserve. The developer just randomly picked one. There’s nothing wrong with it."
He said the architecturally-designed townhouse with a courtyard and one off-street car park was expected to get its title and Auckland Council certificate of completion this month, with settlement expected in October.
The developers of McLeod Green had been optimistic that the sale would reach a price of around the high $600,000s.
The two-bedroom home is in the last batch of houses to sell in the 60-unit McLeod Green complex in Te Atatu. Photo / Supplied
Units in McLeod Green have a current asking price of around $700,000, but when they were selling off-the-plan in February last year, the units were looking for over $800,000. Photo / Supplied
OneRoof records show that some two-bedroom units were recently asking around $700,000 but in February last year, when the project was selling off-the-plan, search prices reached $875,000 for two-bedroom homes.
Eades told OneRoof before the auction that it was unlikely that Sunday's result would affect the value of the other properties when owners go to resell.
“Off-the-plan prices have gone up and down as they stay relevant to the market price when they are selling,” he said.
The developers, Brilliant Stone, through their construction company KBS Construction, are also marketing the Amaia, on Esmonde Road in Takapuna. The first stage of the multi-block apartment village is reported by NZ Herald to cost $350 million for the two seven-storey blocks of 543 units.
The $660,000 sale price was a better result than some other $1 reserves have achieved. In July this year, a troubled apartment on Carrington Road, Mount Albert, sold for just its $1 reserve. Buyers had been warned off the four-bedroom apartment in the complex, which had alarming lack of disclosure in the body corporate documents, and it sold to the owner of another apartment in the same complex.
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