- A nine-bedroom villa in Grey Lynn sold after five years and multiple price drops.
- Developer Steven Ingram accepted an offer below the initial asking price due to tough economic conditions.
- The property faced challenges from interest rate rises and deductibility changes.
A nine-bedroom villa that earned more than $200,000 a year on Airbnb has finally found a new owner after five years of searching and numerous price drops.
Start your property search
Developer Steven Ingram told OneRoof he had accepted an offer on his renovated property, dubbed The Village Reserve, on Dryden Street, in Auckland’s Grey Lynn.
He declined to reveal what the new owner paid, but at the time the property was taken off the market in October, the asking price was $3.379 million - well below the $4m-plus he had initially hoped to get.
Ingram said tough economic conditions had made selling the investment property a challenge. After five years of waiting for better times, he had finally decided to accept an offer.
The property has been rented out on Airbnb. Photo / Supplied
“It’s been a long ride, but I’ve survived by having financial buffers and pivoting,” he told OneRoof.
Ingram said there had been plenty of interest in the villa during the various marketing campaigns run since 2020, but rises in interest rates and changes to interest deductibility made it a harder sell for investors.
“That dissuaded investors, as what would typically be usual business numbers wouldn’t then work.”
But now, with interest rates at their lowest point in years, buyer demand was picking up, and good properties were now selling, he said.
Discover more:
- Kiwi YouTube stars off to Melbourne after selling their dream home for $890,000
- Brad Pitt's West Auckland crib has finally sold - but who's the buyer?
- Ex-All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry selling his spare waterfront apartment
“We had an excellent calibre of buyers in our earlier campaigns, but the urgency wasn’t there to make them go through,” he said.
“I put a lot of effort into the property to make a beautiful Grey Lynn home. The purchaser will likely do great things with it.”
Ingram, who specialises in renovating older properties and turning them into high-end accommodation, picked up the run-down villa opposite Grey Lynn Park in 2019 for just under $2m.
He then gave it a high-end makeover and a new life on Airbnb. At one point, it brought in over $200,000 a year. Rooms and floors were listed on the short-term letting site at a range of prices, but the whole house was rented out for about $2000 a night.
Ingram said last year that it suited him to sell the Grey Lynn property because he had projects on the go in Taranaki, Taupō, and a house to build on Waiheke Island (when he spoke to OneRoof, he was in Taranaki and in the midst of buying an old motel for renovation).
He told OneRoof that he had turned down an offer of $3.5m earlier in the year in the hope of netting a buyer with around $4m to spend. He had already adjusted his expectations of $5.1m outlined in an independent valuation in 2022 by around $1m. The latest RV is $3.05m.
The property was sold at the start of the month by Barfoot & Thompson agents Matt O'Brien and James MacDonald.
Ingram’s Grey Lynn home hit the headlines in 2022 when a neighbour complained that it had become a noisy party house.
“I’ve developed the property to be a beautiful place for people to stay,” he told the New Zealand Herald at the time. “We would never want raging parties there because of wear and tear and the impact on the neighbours.”
He added: “Our online accommodation listings warn people of noise monitors, and guests are told we have a $500 fine if a security guard is called to evict guests on a third alert. We have not needed to do this.”
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Auckland
