- A burnt South Auckland bungalow is for sale after tenants disappeared, leaving owners in limbo.
- The house at 1/36 Hoteo Avenue, Papatoetoe, has been empty for four years due to insurance issues.
- Agent Gabriel Elkhishin expects it to sell for less than its land value of $520,000.
A South Auckland bungalow that was burnt down by tenants who then disappeared in the dead of night is for sale for a bargain price.
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The boarded-up house at 1/36 Hoteo Avenue, in Papatoetoe, has been sitting broken and empty for the last four years.
Harcourts listing agent Gabriel Elkhishin said it was a very sad situation. The tenants burnt the property and disappeared, leaving the owners in limbo and in a stalemate with the insurance company over liability.
Elkhishin said the insurance payout had not been forthcoming because the property was insured for an owner-occupier and not as a rental.
The house has been fenced off and boarded up since catching fire four years ago. Photo / Supplied
“They didn’t know what to do with it. They were like, 'Can we renovate it? What’s that going to be like? How much is it worth in the current market? What should we do with it?'”
Elkhishin told OneRoof that the owners had, on his advice, decided to take the property to auction and sell it "as is, where is".
They paid $280,000 for the three-bedroom, one-bathroom cross-lease property in 2007 and had lived in it before renting it out.
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The main listing photo for the 1940s house has been digitally altered to include flames to help show people exactly what they were buying, Elkhishin said, adding that the concrete home didn't look fire-damaged from the outside. “I really needed people to know that this is burnt down,” he said.
Although the exterior is still intact, the interiors are a mess, and the home needs a complete makeover.
Elkhishin said the property was likely to attract a wide range of specialty buyers, from renovators and traders to developers keen on building something new on the site.
He said it was hard to put a price on at this early stage, but he expected it would sell for less than its land value of $520,000.
- 1/36 Hoteo Avenue, in Papatoetoe, Auckland, goes to auction on May 27
