How much are Kiwis willing to pay for a villa? In some cases, as much as eight times New Zealand's average house price - although location is everything.
In Auckland's Ponsonby, just three streets are a magnet for the suburb's wealth. Known collectively as The Avenues, Ardmore Road, Wanganui Avenue and Albany Road are shining examples of suburbia as we'd like to imagine it. Leafy avenues lined with beautifully preserved character homes, all within walking distance of acclaimed restaurants, boutique shopping and a vibrant nightlife.
According to Auckland Council figures, The Avenues contain just 240 homes. Thirteen have changed hands this year, while another four are on the market looking for new owners.
While homes in the wider Ponsonby area typically sell for between $2m and $3m, buyers looking in The Avenues often arrive with far deeper pockets, willing to pay mansion-level prices for the right property.
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In April, buyers paid $8.1m for a renovated villa on Albany Road. The four-bedroom property featured a swimming pool, a double garage and what the listing described as a "masterful" reinvention of a classic bay villa by John Irving Architects.
The double garage was a notable drawcard in a neighbourhood where off-street parking is scarce.
A renovated villa on Albany Road - one of three neighbouring streets that make up the Avenues - smashed Ponsonby price records when it sold for $8.1m. Photo / Supplied
The four-bedroom home was pitched as a masterful reinvention of a classic home by John Irving Architects. Photo / Supplied
The property sold quickly. Listed by Bayleys agent Edward Pack at the end of March, it changed hands just two weeks later.
Then, in July, a former dump on the same street fetched $5.7m, more than twice the price the vendor, a professional renovator, had paid only a year before.
Ray White agent Angela Saunders, who has worked the patch for 20 years, said homes on The Avenues were a step up from the working-class cottages found elsewhere in Ponsonby.
She reckoned buyers preferred the location to wealthier Herne Bay on the other side of Jervois Road. "In terms of people wanting a bit more identity, The Avenues are not around the gentry," she joked.
"People who love villas are going to love the Avenues. Lovely, wide, tree-lined streets, and big properties. If you go there at Halloween, you will find everyone out."
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Practical features like off-street parking and elevated houses that can be excavated for garaging have also boosted the streets’ appeal.
Bayleys agent Blair Haddow says demand is strong for The Avenues, which means buyers move quickly.
He recently sold a renovated four-bedroom villa on Ardmore Road to rich-lister property developer Chris Meehan for $4.95m - almost $2m above RV.
His vendors, developers Xian Chen and Shaowei Luo, had bought the property a year ago for $2.485m and had carried out an extensive rebuild.
Haddow said the villa had attracted nearly 200 people through its open homes - a high number for the current market.
The owners of this Albany Road villa had an offer within a week of taking their property to market. Photo / Supplied
A striking modern house at 1 Albany Road is looking for over $6.5m. Photo / Supplied
Another of his listings, a four-bedroom villa on Albany Road, attracted a strong pre-auction offer within days of hitting the market at the end of September.
Haddow said do-ups also had their fans. Buyers - a mix of professional developers and families - typically paid high $2ms to $3m for rundown homes and would spend more bringing them up to scratch.
In the past five years alone, 58 homes on The Avenues have had building consents for work done.
And unlike many other parts of Auckland, prices in The Avenues were holding, Haddow said. In February he sold a stylishly renovated four-bedroom villa on Wanganui Avenue in just a day, in an off-market deal. The $4.4m price was $500,000 more than the owner had paid two years earlier.
“I listed it, showed the [buyer] on the Sunday at 12, and it was sold by 3pm on the Monday. I had a list of everything that he wanted, and this house ticked every single box,” Haddow said.
Wall Real Estate Ollie Wall said his agency rarely did auctions, but demand for their listing on Ardmore Road was so high, doing one made sense.
The three-bedroom renovated villa sold under the hammer for $4.22m - nearly $600,000 more than it had sold for at the market peak in 2022.
"It had lots of interest as you'd expect," Wall said, adding: "It's a really good market to be in at the moment because the downsizers are the people who have got plenty of money [after] selling their big houses. But the properties have to click."
Wall is hoping that will be the case for his listing at 1 Albany Road, which is looking for around $6.575m.
The two-storey, two-bedroom home was built by New Zealand concretologist and Grand Designs star Ross Bannan and has attracted the attention of serious architecture fans over the years.
- Click here to find more houses for sale in Ponsonby
