Lucky South Auckland homeowners shared a $3.56 million windfall sale with their neighbours on Albert Street, Otahuhu – just two years after they’d paid $770,000 for their do-up.
The couple had bought the tired-looking three-bedroom 1940s bungalow on Albert Street, Otahuhu with the intention of doing it up to sell in five years.
Ray White agent Gin Tonumalii helped change their minds on their plan. “We were selling the 1920s house at number 11 as a deceased estate, so I’d sent notes to all the neighbours saying this could be a great opportunity to get together if you were thinking of selling,” he says.“Back in 2019, these guys had been beaten at a few auctions and felt that they’d over paid when they spent $770,000.“ They bought the house as a stepping stone to their next goal, working on a five-year plan to sell it. “Now their share, $1.6m that’s more than they’d expected and they could achieve their goals a little earlier.”
OneRoof records show this price breaks the 12-month record for Otahuhu of $2.05m, as the median value in the suburb climbed 36% in the past year to $910,000.
The buyer, a developer, out-bid 12 other registered bidders at the Ray White Manukau auction on Tuesday night when over 60 bids were placed for the pair of homes on over 1700sqm zoned for urban density. Tonumalii said six or seven bidders were still active as the price went past $3m, with developers keen on the flat site, its zoning and its proximity to motorways and the town centre.
He says developers are discovering the appeal of Otahuhu, with its railway station and good motorway connection. He admitted the tricky part in these deals was figuring out how to split the single sale price between neighbours. In this case, because both properties had similarly attractive street frontages, it was simply a matter of splitting by land area – one was 1009sqm and the other.
Not surprisingly, Tonumalii has already heard back from other owners on the same street keen to get a piece of the action. He says this price of over $2000 per sqm was way above what anyone expected and may not be achieved on every property.
“It’s hard for some neighbours to understand if their place is bigger, but it’s up a driveway then developers may not put as much value on that. There’s fierce competition, but buyers really understand the value of a property and can buy sight unseen.” Developments further along Albert Street at numbers 19 and 24 have quickly sold this winter, with five-bedroom townhouses fetching around $900,000 each. Adam Thomson, co-owner of Ray White Manukau, says their agents also brought the buyer to a 1371sqm property zoned for apartments on Brady Road in Otahuhu, that sold Wednesday for $3.15m.
The site had a valuation of $1.22m, and was sold with resource consent for 12 one-bedroom and four two-bedroom apartments and a standalone home. But Thomson says the buyer will “throw those away and start again with two-to-four-bedroom homes that we know sell in this area.”Hot competition at the Manukau auction saw a three-bedroom 1970s home on 750sqm billed as needing TLC on Palmers Road in Clendon Park, on the edge of Manurewa/Weymouth, selling for $1.251m – a whopping $756,000 more than its $475,000 council ratings valuation – after 67 bids were placed. Another Clendon Park property, a tidy three-bedder on 788sqm on Finlayson Avenue, achieved $1.355m – $820,000 more than its valuation.
Thomson told OneRoof that a year ago those properties would have been appraised for $500,000 to $600,000. “It’s been a huge shift. In the past Clendon Park was hard to sell, it was a last resort.“But only a couple of weeks ago a six-year old four-bedroom house on 250sqm on Kuurae Crescent in nearby Waimahia Inlet sold for $902,000 – $302,000 above its rating valuation.”
Source: www.oneroof.co.nz