‘Unheard of’: Apartment that pays you $30,000 a year and won’t cost you a cent – what’s the catch?

- A terraced apartment in Auckland is for sale, but can’t be lived in until 2034.

- The body corporate covers the tenant’s $30,000 annual rent and all outgoings, totalling over $8000.

- The apartment, priced at $599,000, offers steady rental income but may sell for less due to a smaller buyer pool.

A terraced apartment with no outgoing costs has hit the market in Auckland with one catch – buyers won’t be able to live in it until 2034.

The two-bedroom apartment is the designated building manager’s apartment in the 39-unit Manuka Cove complex, in Bayview, North Shore, and is being pitched at investors.

The body corporate pays the tenant’s rent of $30,000 a year plus all the unit’s outgoings, including the rates and body corp fees, which total more than $8000 a year.

City Sales sales manager Scott Dunn said he had come across situations where the body corporate covered the building manager's rent, but not all the other expenses, including maintenance costs.

The two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment is occupied by the building manager for the next nine years. Photo / Supplied

“Honestly in my career I’ve never seen an investment property with no outgoings," he said. “The body corporate covers all of these costs.”

Dunn said the 10-year lease had already been renewed by the body corporate and had nine years to run.

“You’ve got that tenant locked in for the next nine years. If the building manager, for whatever reason, quit his job, then the body corporate would get a new building manager and that building manager would become the new tenant.”

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Once the lease expired, the new owner was free to do what they wanted to do with the apartment, which could include extending the management lease again, occupying the property themselves or on-selling it to someone else who wanted to live there, Dunn said.

Older agents in his office told him that the building managers’ units were usually snapped up first when these types of complexes were first built – most likely due to the guaranteed rental income they provided.

The vendor bought the building manager’s property off-the-plans 21 years ago for $272,000, according to OneRoof-Valocity records, and had rented it to the body corporate ever since.

The 39-unit complex has a pool, spa and gym. Photo / Supplied

“What it offers is steady rental income with no outgoings.”

But despite the guaranteed income, Dunn said it was possible the terraced house, which was priced at $599,000, could sell for less than other apartments in the building because it had a much smaller buyer pool.

There have been six sales in the complex since 2023 ranging from $685,000 for a smaller two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment to $765,000 for the bigger three-bedroom, two-bathroom terraced apartment, according to OneRoof-Valocity data.

“All of these other ones they could sell to a first-home buyer or someone buying for their parents or something like that. Owner-occupiers usually pay more to live in a property, they pay an emotional price. If there’s a limited buyer pool then we expect lower prices.”

- 33/216 Manuka Road, in Bayview, Auckland, has an asking price of $599,000.