- A run-down state house in Mount Albert sold for $940,000, below its $970,000 asking price.
- Two neighbouring Kāinga Ora properties are still available for $970,000 and $945,000.
- The sales strategy targets home buyers with attractive pricing in a high-value suburb.
A run-down state house in one of Auckland’s most popular suburbs has been scooped up for less than $1 million.
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The two-bedroom home at 20 Tasman Avenue, in Mount Albert, was one of three neighbouring properties Kāinga Ora listed for sale last week with fixed prices - all of which were substantially less than their council valuation.
Harcourts listing agent Aman Gulia told OneRoof that 20 Tasman Avenue was bought by a family who planned to make it their own home. He declined to reveal the sale price, but OneRoof understands it was $30,000 below the $970,000 asking price.
The three neighbouring Kāinga Ora properties on Tasman Avenue have a combined RV of more than $4m. Photo / Supplied
OneRoof records show the property has an RV of $1.5m. The two-bedroom state houses at 16 and 18 Tasman Avenue, which have RVs of $1.425m and $1.36m, are still available to purchase for $970,000 and $945,000, respectively.
The three properties sit on sections of around 400sqm and are in a suburb where modernised homes can easily fetch over $2m.
They first hit the market in March as a single package aimed at developers, but the agents changed tactics and relisted them individually with fixed prices.
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“Putting a price on is a good strategy,” said Ray White Manukau co-owner Tom Rawson, who is not involved in the sale of the Tasman Avenue homes but does have agents on his teams selling other properties owned by Kāinga Ora.
“Any home buyer can say, ‘I’m going to get excited about this one’, because it’s under $1m, and that’s pretty attractive in Mount Albert.
“Pricing them says, ‘I’m not going to muck around with you, I just want them gone’. [Kāinga Ora] would have enough information at their fingertips to know what they should be worth.”
Still up for grabs is 16 Tasman Avenue, which has an asking price of $970,000. Photo / Supplied
Neighbouring 18 Tasman Avenue is for sale for $945,000. Photo / Supplied
He added: “I can see a beautifully renovated house on that same street getting $1.598m, so being on a $1.5m-plus street would give people a lot of confidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if these get fixed up and sold, especially when they’re over the road from an entirely new community.”
Tasman Avenue sits across the road from the new 40ha urban village of Te Kukūnga Waka on the site of the old Carrington Hospital, where more than 4000 homes will be built over the next 10 to 15 years. The neighbourhood is next to Unitec and handy to Point Chevalier shops, transport links, and the Oakley Creek bush reserves.
OneRoof understands that Kāinga Ora had resource consents to build five homes across the three sections at 16-20 Tasman Avenue, but Gulia told OneRoof this was not part of the sales pitch.
Gulia and his co-listing agent on Tasman Avenue, Candice Chen, sold another Kāinga Ora listing. The 1950s duplex on Stoddard Road, in Mount Roskill, had an asking price of $749,000 – well below the RV of $1.175m.
Gulia declined to reveal the sale price but said the buyer was “a residential person” and not a developer. “The important thing is for Kāinga Ora to understand where the market lies for these properties, but they also don’t do fire sales,” he said.
A 1950s duplex at Stoddard Road, Mount Roskill, also sold within days after asking $749,000 - more than $400,000 below RV. Photo / Supplied
“My understanding is that they are very process-based; it is not an emotional sale,” he said, adding that multiple real estate agencies had to pitch for the business, which would include appraisals of likely market value.
“I get hundreds and hundreds of developers asking for [these sorts of sites] but [KO] won’t sell to my buyers because they have to go through the process of giving everyone a fair and equal opportunity to buy.”
Gulia said even though he brought some 24 initial offers on the Tasman Avenue properties, they did not fit the housing agency’s criteria.
Rawson added that the wave of Kāinga Ora properties set to hit the market over the next few months was a good thing. “The old listings aren’t selling, so as new ones come on, they get snapped up. New listings are down 11% across the country, so [Kāinga Ora] may have timed it perfectly,” he said.
“This stuff has good bones.”
Gareth Stiven, Kāinga Ora’s general manager for strategy, finance and policy, told OneRoof that the agency used independent valuation to “inform the starting price point”.
“What the property ultimately sells for is determined by the market,” he said in a written statement.
“Our national divestment programme has just begun ... and homes will be going on the market at different times throughout the year. We are always looking to get the best possible price for the properties we are selling, so like any other prudent property owner, we consider local market conditions before listing a property.”
- 16 Tasman Avenue, Mount Albert, Auckland, is for sale for $970,000; 18 Tasman Avenue is for sale for $945,000
