- The Auckland mansion at 144 Orakei Road, previously sold for $12.8m, is back on the market.
- The property, known for its luxury features, is now being sold by tender through Barfoot & Thompson.
- Agents highlight the effectiveness of auctions for high-end properties, despite the current tender approach.
The Auckland mansion that smashed auction records when it sold two years ago for $12.8 million is back on the market, but the listing agent is tight-lipped about the resale.
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In February 2024, the grand Arts and Crafts house at 144 Orakei Road, in Remuera, sold in four minutes to a family who had only seen it the day before.
The sale price was New Zealand’s highest for a residential property at auction, and sent ripples across the industry, with agents telling OneRoof at the time that it proved top-end properties could get results under the hammer.
This time, 144 Orakei Road is being sold by way of tender, and the listing agent, Barfoot & Thompson’s Aden Xu, was reluctant to say why it was back on the market.
He declined to tell OneRoof why the owners were selling, or to confirm that they were the same buyers from 2024’s auction.
Agents are tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the return of the luxuriously-finished Orakei Road mansion to market. Photo / Supplied
The Orakei Road mansion comes with a tennis court, swimming pool and is in the double grammar school zone. Photo / Supplied
OneRoof records show that there was a title transfer for 144 Orakei Road a year ago for $12.6m. The name on the new title is different to the one associated with the $12.8m sale, but Xu said his client’s details were confidential.
The six-bedroom property seems to be popular with buyers. In 2021, it changed hands for $11m, and in 2024, it attracted four determined bidders.
The Barfoot & Thompson agent who brought the house to auction in 2024 told OneRoof at the time that her vendor had just left New Zealand, while the new buyers had only just arrived in the country.
The luxuriously-finished property has a swimming pool and tennis court, is in Auckland’s prized double grammar school zone and has an RV of $11.8m.
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While 144 Orakei Road’s vendors are choosing a less public sales method this time around, Barfoot & Thompson Remuera manager Carolyn Vernon said that people should not be afraid to use auctions for more expensive properties.
“I’m certainly not fearful of taking a high-end property to auction when you’ve got all those components in,” she said, pointing to an auction last week for a smart 1930s five-bedroom house with a swimming pool on Remuera’s Benson Road, which sold for $5.2m – well above its RV – after only two minutes of bidding.
One of Vernon’s agents is bringing another high-value Remuera mansion to auction next week, and is confident that there will be qualified bidders around the property’s RV of $8.9m.
Listing agent Leila MacDonald told OneRoof last month that over a dozen qualified buyers had viewed the historic villa at 112 Victoria Avenue in its first week on the market, including some who had been looking for over a year.
A 1910 villa on a huge 1200sqm section at 112 Victoria Avenue, in Remuera, has already attracted buyers with $9m budgets. Photo / Supplied
A luxury waterfront home at 39 Burwood Crescent, in Remuera, has an RV of $12.5m and goes to auction on Wednesday. Photo / Supplied
Steen Nielsen, from Ray White Remuera, is another agent who has confidence in auction sales. He is bringing a five-bedroom house at 39 Burwood Crescent to auction on Wednesday, and while he never likes to predict price, he believes the RV of $12.5m RV is “a stake in the ground”.
“Amongst Kiwis in general, there’s a perception that you don’t auction your home when it’s at a certain value,” Nielsen told OneRoof.
“I don’t agree with that. From my experience, what owners of these properties typically try to avoid is the ‘failure’ of a failed auction. But there’s no difference between having an auction that is not reaching the level that they want and having tenders that come below the level that they would like.”
He said buyers like to know what other buyers are offering so they can meet – or beat – the competition. “If someone else puts up their hand and offers another $10,000 or $50,000 or $1000, then they have to act on it. I have met so many purchasers who are frustrated and infuriated because they missed out on their dream home for the sake of $25,000.”
He said that selling by auction means that the first weeks of a campaign are directed at unconditional buyers, although it doesn’t hurt for bidders in the room to know conditional buyers are waiting in the wings. “We need to find that level where the vendors will run with the bird in the hand,” he said
- Click here to find more properties for sale in Remuera
