- Richie and Gemma McCaw's Christchurch home, listed in February, is this year's most viewed on OneRoof.
- The four-bedroom house, designed by David Sheppard, features a pool and basketball hoop.
- Despite out-of-town interest, agent Cameron Bailey expects most serious buyers to be local.
New Zealand's most popular home of 2026 goes to auction tomorrow, but will the vendors walk away in triumph?
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Sporting legends Richie and Gemma McCaw listed their Christchurch home at the end of February, and on property platforms both here and overseas, it has attracted tens of thousands of views
On OneRoof, it is this year's most viewed listing by a wide margin, with much of the interest coming from Auckland buyers.
Harcourts Gold listing agent Cameron Bailey didn't want to jump the gun, but he felt that there would be competition for the house at 24A Jacksons Road, in Fendalton.
“You never know who is going to be there until the day, but it feels like we are going to have competitive bidding,” he told OneRoof.
Baileys said the fact that the house was owned by a former All Black and a former Black Stick was a drawcard, but he suspected serious buyers would be more concerned about the house and its location than the lives of the sellers.
The McCaws are selling up after shifting to Wānaka more than a year ago. Photo / George Novak
The McCaws’ four-bedroom architect-designed home, built 12 years ago, sits on over 1000sqm and has a swimming pool and basketball hoop. Photo / Supplied
The open-plan kitchen, living, and dining rooms have floor-to-ceiling sliding doors to the garden. Photo / Supplied
“It might be of interest to a lot of people, but it doesn’t mean we’ve had any more buyers through the door,” he said.
“I don’t think people buy it because it’s anyone’s house. It’s still got to tick all the boxes for the house that they want.”
Instead, it had been popular because it was a “good house in a good location”.
He added: “The media is jumping onto out-of-town buyers, but I think most of the [recent big] sales have gone to Christchurch buyers.”
The McCaws bought the luxury four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in 2021 for $3.25 million and are selling up following a move to Wānaka more than a year ago.
The house was designed by David Sheppard of Sheppard and Rout Architects and built in 2014. Award-winning interior designer Ingrid Geldof designed the kitchen with dark cabinetry complementing the white kitchen bench, which also has a hidden butler’s pantry. It is set on a rear 1047sqm section and features an inground pool and basketball hoop.
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Bailey previously told OneRoof that it was a beautiful private, family home, and that the McCaws had loved living there. “They’ve loved it, they’ve loved the location,” he said.
The auction of 24A Jacksons Road follows some high-profile sales in Christchurch's wealthy suburbs. Last week, the owners of a 1970s unit on Repton Street, in Merivale, walked away with an impressive $1.54m - $350,000 more than they had expected - after intense bidding.
The auction for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom cross-lease property was brought forward by three days after the owners received an offer of $1.19m. Two bidders in the auction room placed a flurry of bids, pushing the sale price higher.
Harcourts Gold agent Deb Crosby said a downsizer and an out-of-towner looking for a town base both really wanted the property.
A three-bedroom unit on Repton Street, in Merivale, fetched $1.54m at a heated auction last week. Photo / Supplied
Crosby said single-level units in Merivale were scarce and this was especially unique because it had undergone an architectural extension in 2009, was double-glazed, north-facing, and had a double garage and two off-road carparks.
“It was a good property, and these two people wanted to buy it, and because we had two people fighting over it, it went for a great price.”
Harcourts Gold managing director Chris Kennedy, who was at the auction, said the auction “just kept going and going and going”.
“It was just an absolute scrap between those in the auction room that day. It was just phenomenal,” he told OneRoof.
Kennedy said properties like Repton Street didn’t hit the market often, but when they did, they attracted a lot of attention.
Just days earlier, another property in the neighbouring suburb of Fendalton smashed the city’s auction record after selling for $8.34m.
A five-bedroom home on Glandovey Road, in Fendalton, was snapped up for $8.34m - making it the highest auction sale in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied
A local family snapped up the five-bedroom home on Glandovey Road, which was designed by Darren O’Neil, of O’Neill Architecture.
Harcourts Grenadier agent Alison Aitken earlier told OneRoof that there had been a lot of interest in the property because it was “gorgeous looking” and on a rare but sought-after 2479sqm section on the river boundary.
Aitken agreed with Bailey that while most of the high-end homes in the city attracted some out-of-town interest, they mostly ended up being bought by locals.
“There’s plenty of money here,” she said. “There are plenty of people in Christchurch with big cheque books, and they are already living here and are just upgrading. And they only come out when you get a listing like that, they are not actively looking until something like that pops up on the market.”
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