- A dilapidated cottage on Great Barrier Island is likely to be demolished, with a $14,000 removal quote.
- The property, offering privacy and beach access, has attracted interest but no plans to save the cottage.
- Agent Mike Jensen advises ignoring the $480,000 RV, suggesting a price of $350,000 instead.
If the dilapidated cottage that Barfoot & Thompson agent Mike Jensen is selling on Great Barrier Island had a trendy Auckland city address, then the buyers would be queuing up for the chance to renovate it.
Start your property search
Instead, the home at 328 Blind Bay Road is most likely set for the scrapheap, the agent told OneRoof. “If this were in Grey Lynn, you’d try and save the materials at least,” he said.
Jensen said his vendor, a local investor, had a quote for $14,000 to demolish and remove the pioneer cottage from the property.
The vendor had bought the home at a mortgagee sale a decade ago, but his plans to do something with the block didn’t pan out, and so he was looking to offload it.
The 1128sqm property overlooks Blind Bay. Photo / Supplied
The cottage is falling to pieces. The vendor has a quote for $14,000 to remove it from the site. Photo / Supplied
Jensen said the history of the house was unclear. The cottage was most likely built in the 1930s, with Auckland Council records noting there was a Public Works Department encampment in the area at the time. Relief workers forged new roads by hand using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows, with the assistance of explosives, and stone masons created some of the stone seawalls, bridges and culverts that survive today.
The 1128sqm block, which overlooks Blind Bay and comes with access to the nearby beach and boat ramp, and is being sold “as is, where is”.
Discover more:
- 'For the price of a house in Omaha, you could have this and a helicopter'
- Tiny island where everyone knows your name and houses cost less than $500,000
- Three homes worth over $3m could sell for as little as three bucks
Jensen said the property had attracted a good level of enquiry – “we’ve got two or three parties arranging to come out and stay for inspections” – but so far no one had expressed an interest in keeping the cottage. “The obvious question is: what do we do with the house? There are two strategies. You could try to save the existing footprint to avoid resource consent, but we think it will be demolished,” he said.
“We’ve got a written quote from Aotea Contractors on the island, $14,000 to take the house away and dispose of it. That quote is available to any potential buyer. If I didn’t have that answer, I’d be going nowhere.”
The Blind Bay Road property is well hidden but still close to the beach. Photo / Supplied
Jensen said the site offered buyers a lot of privacy. “I would have driven past that house a thousand times over the last 20 years, and I didn’t even know it was there. It’s slightly elevated, and you can’t see it from the Blind Bay Road,” he told OneRoof.
“But it’s only about 300 metres to the beach and the boat ramp. The mature trees in front provide both privacy and shelter. It’s got pretty much everything people are looking for when they come to the Barrier to build.”
“I have to allow a longer marketing period on the Barrier so people can plan their trips. We’re closing on the 20th of November.”
Jensen urged buyers to ignore the RV of $480,000. “If you rang me, I’d be quoting $350,000,” he said. “The new RVs are completely inaccurate. I pay no attention to them.”
An Auckland lawyer bought this two-bedroom bach, on a 4.88ha block, on Medland Road earlier this month. Photo / Supplied
He noted that the island’s housing market had been busy in recent months. “I sold a property on Medland Road last week to a barrister living in Auckland. He works a lot overseas and bought it as a getaway. He’s going to live on the island and run his business from there.
“I also sold a four-hectare bush block with a sea view for $450,000 to an Australian couple with three young kids. They’re moving to the Barrier to build a new house and escape the heat of Australia.”
