- A burnt-out house in Invercargill sold for $151,000, the city's cheapest property this year.
- The auction saw six bidders, with a phone bidder winning after 28 bids.
- The new owner is an experienced developer familiar with the area.
Two homes that could easily be Invercargill's worst have been snapped up within a week of each other, as cashed-up developers jostled for prime sites in the city.
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Last week, OneRoof reported that more than a dozen buyers turned up to bid on a derelict four-bedroom villa on O’Hara Street, in Appleby. The deceased estate, which had been billed as a buyer's worst nightmare, sold under the hammer for $154,000 - $36,000 below its RV.
Seven days later, a fire-damaged three-bedroom home on Scott Street, in the neighbouring suburb of Strathern, sold for $151,000 after an equally intense auction.
Buyers could not step inside the property because of a gaping hole in the floor. Photo / Supplied
Ray White listing agent Ben Henderson said he had six registered bidders for the mortgagee auction on June 19. The contest turned into a ping-pong match between two developers, one of whom was bidding over the phone.
The soot-covered property, which has an assessed value of $180,000, had been deemed too dangerous to inspect due to a gaping hole in the floor, caused by an electrical fire at the end of 2024.
The auction opened with a vendor bid of $70,000 and paused at $115,000 for negotiations. Bidding started again at $125,000, with the two remaining bidders going "hammer and tongs to $151,000”, Henderson told OneRoof.
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“It was a good result,” he said, adding that the buyer was an experienced developer who was familiar with the area.
“He is pretty well versed in doing developments and those sorts of things. He’s the right sort of buyer for the property.”
Henderson said Invercargill was attracting interest from investors at the moment , and the large 1287sqm section had attracted both developers and renovators.
“Bits of land like that in built-up areas aren’t that easy to come across, and it just gave them that opportunity.”
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