- Janine Ashton sold her Waimauku estate for $4.8 million, after buying it for $3.5 million in 2020.
- The 615sqm property features a swimming pool, four-car garage, and a self-contained staff home.
- Agent Rueben Payn said winter was tough for lifestyle properties, with few sales over $5 million.
A former high-flying exec in Australia’s music industry has sold her luxury country spread on Auckland’s western fringes for just under $5 million.
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Janine Ashton, who was a senior vice-president at Universal Music in the Asia Pacific region, bought the five-bedroom estate on Woodhill Park Road, in Waimauku, in September 2020 for $3.5m.
She listed it a year later, but finding a buyer wasn't easy. The property cycled through several agencies and pricing strategies, but everything came together in February this year, when buyers appeared with $4.8m to spend.
The house has two kitchens, six bathrooms, a pool house, and guest accommodation. Photo / Supplied
The vendor had decorated the property in an international style. Photo / Supplied
The 615sqm home, which sits on immaculately landscaped grounds, features a swimming pool, garaging for four cars, a self-contained staff home or yoga retreat, a pool house, and two kitchens.
White Fox listing agent Rueben Payn said the property “deserves a place in Architectural Digest”.
When the agency took on the property, they had a frank but difficult conversation with the vendor, telling her its appraisal was lower than the number she had been trying to get over the years.
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But two weeks after the agency started its marketing, two buyers who had never seen the property before made an offer. “They walked in and fell in love straight away. They viewed it on the Sunday, and went unconditional by the Monday night."
“Then we managed to achieve the original price, which is amazing. It was a matter of right buyers, right property. We’re so stoked with it.”
He said that the Remuera-based buyers had been looking for some months for a second country residence for their family. "They had been looking all around Auckland for a lifestyle property,” Payn said.
The buyers had been on the hunt for a lifestyle property and snapped up Woodhill Park Road within two days of viewing it. Photo / Supplied
When the property first came in the market in 2021, the owner told OneRoof she immediately gutted the interior and extended the floor plan. “I know international,” she told OneRoof.
“It is like being on a permanent holiday, relaxing in a top New Zealand luxury lodge or a five-star hotel spa in Paris. There is a serene, park-like energy that is incredibly peaceful. You would never believe you were 35 minutes from Auckland."
Payn said winter has been tough for lifestyle properties in north and northwest Auckland, with only one sale over $5m this year.
“Usually in a good market, you are seeing five to 10 sales at that level. There are a lot of listings that have been on for over six months. But we think with the foreign buyer changes, there will be more people looking for trophy landholdings.
“A lot of vendors have been waiting for that change.”
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