The national body representing property sellers is putting its own headquarters on the block.

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand has decided to sell up its current building and land in Auckland's up-market Parnell area, REINZ chief executive Helen O'Sullivan said. REINZ has owned the site for 27 years.

"The REINZ board, whose members have front-line knowledge of where real estate markets are moving, felt that now was a good time to take advantage of a confident market in Auckland to sell the properties," she said.

The Parnell Road property is being marketed by James Chan and Cameron Melhuish of Bayleys Real Estate and will be subject of an international tender process closing on April 11.

REINZ gave no indication of the value of the property or its expectation of a final price. 

The REINZ's building is 758 square metres and  sits on 1813 sq m of land. The front portion of the land, which contains the two-storeyed REINZ building is zoned business 2. REINZ pays annual rental of $187,342 on it while part of the lower floor is leased to a trust administration company on a three year lease expiring in 2015, and generating annual rental of $59,624.

The rear portion of the total site contains a 606 sq m area zoned residential 7B, which allows for the development of three residential dwellings. A resource consent for the site was granted in 2009 and has a 10 year expiry period.

"The size of the Parnell Road offices is currently surplus to our requirements, and while they presently do generate income for the institute through the subleasing of part of the premises, the proceeds from this sale could be better utilised,"  O’Sullivan said.

She said proceeds from the sale would be used to purchase new head office premises "at some stage in the future in a yet-to-be decided city fringe location", as well as a commercial investment property.

"However, that process is someway off, and is obviously dependent on the successful sale of our current Parnell location."