- The unusual two-bedroom Wellsford house, formerly a water tank, is listed for $399,000.
- The home is likely to attract investors or buyers wanting a “unique, weird and wonderful” home.
- Wellsford’s lower prices are attracting first-home buyers, while infrastructure projects could accelerate the town’s growth.
A shoebox-shaped house plonked in a car park on Wellsford’s main street in Rodney is the talk of the town.
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Raine & Horne agent Jon Standbrook has just listed the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house at 167 Rodney Street. It’s looking for $399,000, but the questions Standbrook has been fielding have nothing to do with the price.
“For people in general, if you asked them what it is, they wouldn’t have a clue, but it’s there stuck in the middle of a car park or what looks like a car park.”
The 84sqm property, which sits on a freehold 468sqm section, is owned by a commercial property investor. He bought it at a mortgagee sale along with a block of retail shops tenanted by a gift shop, hairdressers and other businesses.
“He’s selling this title off because it’s of no consequence or use for him,” Standbrook told OneRoof.
The two-bedroom property needs to be brought up to healthy homes standard. Photo / Supplied
The lounge is downstairs, with the bedrooms and kitchen upstairs. Photo / Supplied
He believes the property began life in the 1930s as one of Wellsford’s water storage tanks. It was later turned into a house, with the concrete walls cut so windows could be installed and fibre cement planks added outside to make it more attractive.
Standbrook said there were two very different buyer groups the “cube” would attract.
“It’s likely either to be an investor who will buy it and continue to rent it out subject to getting it up to healthy homes standard or someone who wants a little bit of weird and wonderful to have as their home.”
Wellsford’s affordability was a huge selling point for people, Standbrook said.
His vendor had purposely priced 167 Rodney Street competitively, he said. “I’m not aware there’s any property that sold for less than $400,000, and certainly I don’t think there’s any property asking for less than $400,000.”
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Last year there were just two sales for $400,000 or under, according to OneRoof-Valocity data. A two-bedroom unit on Coronation Street, in Te Hana, sold for $390,000, while a 1ha property with an unconsented dwelling on Ingleton Road fetched $400,000.
Wellsford – often referred to as Warkworth’s cheaper cousin – has been attracting strong interest from first-home buyers in the last six to nine months as Aucklanders looked to move a bit further north to get on the property ladder, he said.
“To buy a lifestyle property in Warkworth, which would be the next closest town, you are talking significantly more,” Standbrook said.
Wellsford prices had dropped over the last few years, he said, noting that standalone homes traded around the $600,000 mark, while entry-level lifestyle properties started at $800,000.
Standbrook said the town was on track to grow, pointing to new infrastructure projects in the area. “The whole demographic of Wellsford has the potential to really have a little boom happening. The future prognosis for Wellsford is I think very good,” he said.
“It’s basically a rural service town, but with a changing future in my opinion. What Warkworth was 30 or 40 years back, Wellsford has got that potential. I think over the next six or seven years it will take on another direction of life.”
Harcourts agent Abbey Collins said Wellsford was popular with first-home buyers at the moment. About 75% of them were either in their 50s or families who already lived in Wellsford and could finally afford to buy, while the remaining 25% were moving from Warkworth, the North Shore and the Hibiscus Coast.
“We've had a lot of properties in the low to mid-$500,000s to the mid-$700,000s, and that–s kind of where the first-home buyers have been coming in.”
- 167 Rodney Street, Wellsford, Auckland, is for sale for $399,000
