$9m clifftop mansion re-sells one year later for nearly $1m less

- Auckland mansion which sold for $9m at a mortgagee sale has resold for $8.06m.

- Bayleys agents said the vendor accepted the lower price due to market conditions.

- Mortgagee and stress sales are low compared to post-GFC levels.

A clifftop Auckland mansion, snapped up two years ago at a mortgagee sale for $9 million, was resold a year later for almost a million dollars less, OneRoof can reveal.

The five-bedroom luxury home on Cliff Road, in Saint Heliers, was snapped up in April last year for just over $8.06m.

The deal was brokered by Bayleys agents David Rainbow, Harry Cheng and Carol Cong. Rainbow told OneRoof: “Obviously, the vendor wanted a bit more because it owed them a bit more. But it is a sign of the times, to be perfectly frank,” he said.

“When you are getting into those price brackets, you just have to find that one buyer. The vendor lived elsewhere, so she accepted reality, accepted the price.”

Cheng added that most of the buyers who viewed the house thought it needed work and had factored that into their pricing.

The buyer of the 25-year-old clifftop mansion is planning a full-scale renovation to turn it into his dream home. Photo / Supplied

The vendor had tapped Bayleys to sell the Sumich-designed property three months after buying at a mortgagee sale for $9m at the end of 2023.

The property was previously owned by a property developer whose company reportedly ran into financial trouble during the post-Covid house price slump.

When OneRoof first reported on the listing in 2024, Bayleys declined to say why its client was selling after such a short period of ownership. “Everybody has their own set of circumstances, and they do not want to disclose that to the public,” Cheng said.

Rainbow told OneRoof this week that the new owner loved the position and the size of the house and was already planning alterations.

Discover more:

- Fashion power couple sell their art-filled villa for above RV

- John Banks mansion relisted for sale - what will it get this time?

- Whale Rider director quietly sells her West Auckland bach

Cheng added: “It is going to be almost a full reno, including re-cladding the property and changing the internal layout. It is a 2000 house.

“The new owner wants to have a dream home. The location is irreplaceable; the view is magnificent. It is hard to find a piece of land with that view and location.”

Cheng said he noticed an uptick of wealthy buyers in the market in recent months, but noted that most were cautious. “I would say they are conservative. We are not talking about overseas investors who can spend $5m rushing in.”

He said he noticed over the summer that there were some buyers from China in Auckland, but added that some of them had misunderstood the details of the loosening of the foreign buyer rules.

The Cliff Road property has spectacular views of Rangitoto and the city. Photo / Supplied

“Some people think New Zealand is open to everybody. They are not residents or citizens, not doing the Active Investor Plus investments.”

However, he is seeing a rush of interest from owners of $5m-plus houses, which could sell to holders of the Active Investor Plus visa. Many of them are keen to get their places quietly in front of buyers rather than a full market campaign.

Kelvin Davidson, chief economist at data company Cotality, said that the number of mortgagee or distress sales over the last two years was low compared to the numbers post-GFC.

“I suspect potentially bad loans didn’t get approved in the first place because of serviceability testing by the banks,” he said.

“Probably some people who might otherwise have been a mortgagee sale have not, because they did not get a loan. I talk to a lot of banks, and people in banking, and mortgagee sales are just not something that comes up.”

Tella home loans chief Andrew Chambers says the outlook for 2026 is more positive. Photo / Supplied

Davidson said that last year there were only 200 mortgagee sales last year, compared to 2600 at the height of the post-GFC crisis. While some buyers do sniff the potential of a bargain price for properties being quit quickly, such sales were not an issue in today’s market.

Wayne Shum, senior research analyst for Valocity Global, said that buyers purchasing a mortgagee property, where they cannot inspect the house inside, know that they are taking a risk.

“Sometimes you cannot look inside, you cannot get a valuation, so you’re kind of buying looking from the road. You could have issues; it could be wildly damaged just before settlement,” he said.

Andrew Chambers, chief executive of home loans company Tella, told OneRoof he did not expect to see many stress sales this year.

“Household positions have improved. In 2024, we were seeing so much coming through that did not work: house prices were too high, incomes were too low, and inflation in the grocery space was really killing people.

“Now we’re seeing a better position: that inflationary bit has shaken out, house prices are having a breather and coming back, some of the wage stuff is catching up,” he said.

Chambers said that early tactics to ease debt, such as people switching to interest-only payments, were growing in 2024 but had slowed down considerably for households last year. Coming into 2026, the outlook was better. “Things stack up, and it’s a buyer’s market still,” he said.

However, he added, there was still some pain for business borrowers such as investors or developers. “There is still a lot of pain in that [property-related] space. You would expect that because it takes a while to filter through,” Chambers said.

“That has generally driven off land values. So, if land values drop, then you have a problem.”

- Click here to see more properties for sale in Auckland