- A run-down South Auckland home sold for $630,500, exceeding its $400,000 reserve at auction.
- The auction featured 70 properties, with 56 selling for a total of $34.2m.
- The Darnell Crescent house, needing significant work, attracted strong interest from investors and traders.
A crazy day in the auction room saw a run-down home in South Auckland fly past its reserve of $400,000 to hit $630,500, delighting the owner who was selling because she could not afford the renovations needed after tenants neglected the property.
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The four-bedroom home on Darnell Crescent, in Clover Park, needed serious work and was being sold with a low reserve at Ray White’s Game Day South mega auction this week.
About 70 other properties were up for grabs at Wednesday’s event at Ray White Manukau, with 56 selling under the hammer for a total of $34.2 million.
Listing agent Liam Brothers, who was marketing the property with his father Charlie, said the event was a success, achieving a clearance rate of 70%. There were 278 bidders in the room on the day, and a total of 1059 bids placed.
Charlie Brothers had told OneRoof before the auction that the Darnell Crescent house was the worst do-up he had seen in 15 years of selling real estate in South Auckland.
A family with experience in flipping houses snapped up the Darnell Crescent property. Photo / Supplied
The house had been with the same family for 38 years and needed “serious work”. Photo / Supplied
The elderly vendor had owned the property for 38 years but had rented it out, and she told OneRoof she wanted her situation to serve as a cautionary tale to others, as her tenants had left her with a “big mess”.
“I just want to sell the house because I can’t afford to renovate,” she said.
The woman had been excited when she bought the house in 1988 for $78,000 as her first family home.
Charlie Brothers told OneRoof it cost $2500 to clear out the rubbish. “There was rubbish everywhere. The outside had to be cleared first before we could do anything. That’s just the outside.
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“This is one of the worst do-ups that we’ve seen – I’ve seen a lot. After 15 years, I’ve seen them all.”
While the RV on the house was $740,000, Liam Brothers said the agents had appraised the property at $550,000 but at the start of the marketing campaign much lower offers of around $400,000 were being made.
Only a few potential buyers had gone through until the low reserve was set, which kick-started interest. Around 20 groups went through the weekend before the auction, with others returning on Monday and Tuesday.
The renewed momentum had been ridiculously strong, Liam said, adding that a lot of the $400,000 buyers had come back only to bid higher in the competitive auction environment.
Liam said he was blown away by the results and said the nervous vendor had been “really happy” with the outcome.
Some 278 bidders registered for Wednesday’s Game Day auction event at Ray White Manukau’s head office. Photo / Supplied
A deceased estate on McInnes Road, in Weymouth, fetched almost $900,000 at the auction. Photo / Supplied
The auction moved quickly, with multiple parties making bids in $5000 and $10,000 increments, and then cutting down to $1000 before the hammer came down.
Many of those who showed interest were investors and traders, and the buyers were a family with experience in flipping houses, Liam said.
In another strong result, a deceased estate on McInnes Road, in Weymouth, sold after intense bidding, this time with developers winning.
The three-bedroom home on an 809sqm freehold section with room for eight cars sold almost at its $900,000 RV. The reserve had been set at $730,000, with the bidding starting at $700,000.
“We went on the market at $760,000 – it was $1000 bids from $800,000, all the way to $895,000,” Liam said.
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