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Remuera apartment sells for $8.7 million - believed to be the most expensive apartment ever sold in this country

Property
Remuera apartment sells for $8.7 million - believed to be the most expensive apartment ever sold in this country

An apartment in the upmarket Auckland suburb of Remuera has sold for $8.7 million, in what is believed to be this country's most expensive apartment sale.

The three bedroom apartment (pictured at right) in the Kingsridge apartment building located across the road from the library in the heart of Remuera, has a floor area of 356 square metres, three bathrooms and internal garaging for three cars.

All of the bedrooms and main living areas open out to outdoor terraces, and most rooms have panoramic views looking north over the city and Waitemata Harbour.

It was sold at auction by Bayleys' Remuera office. The agent who handled the sale, Gary Wallace, said the auction room was full for the sale and bidding started at $5 million.

Eventually just two bidders were left to battle it out until it sold under the hammer for $8.7 million.

Wallace said the buyers were locals.

According to QV.co.nz the apartment had a rating valuation of $6.21 million and had been purchased in 2005 for $4.7 million.

Other recent highly priced apartment sales have included a penthouse in the Sentinel building at Takapuna and another in the Metropolis building in Auckland's CBD. Both are understood to have sold recently for between $7 million and $8 million.

However things were a little quieter at the main Auckland apartment auctions this week, where a range of more affordable properties were on offer.

At City Sales' auction on Wednesday, four apartments were offered but only one was sold under the hammer, with the rest passed in to be sold by negotiation.

The unit that sold was a 37 square metre studio in the Heritage Grand Tower on Nelson St in the CBD, which went for $268,000.

At Barfoot & Thompson's main apartment auction this week just two units were offered. Although both attracted bids, they were both passed in.

Five commercial properties were also offered at the same auction with one selling under the hammer and the others passed in for sale by negotiation.

At Ray White City Apartments' regular weekly auction, five apartments were offered. Three sold under the hammer with the remaining two passed in for sale by negotiation.

The full results from those auctions with prices of the individual properties that sold and details of those that didn't, are available on our Auction Results page.

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60 Comments

Errr...... "Kingsridge" not "Kingsbridge"

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No this can't be the suburb where I am living in, as it is out of control. I don't wish this to happen to all those young families who are struggling and FHB's who have been praying for Auckland house prices to come down. No average Kiwi families can afford a $8.7m apartment this should be banned, and we need to stop hard-working Kiwis from leaving the city! http://beta.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11…

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Twenty homeless people could comfortably live in that one apartment! smh

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If we increase the accommodation supplement enough we can make it happen! C'mon everyone.

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and 3 of them could park their cars.

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Trust me the exodus from Auckland will ramp up further, especially after yesterdays budget. I have a couple of friends holding out but they soon too will leave the car clogged roads to better pastures. Thanks to council and national - no vision, no answers, environment trashed. Even with Australia doing its best to keep us away, still better standard of living over there.

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Yep, as everyone knows, Auckland's population is decreasing massively every year

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Let's be realistic. We will never, ever have a problem attracting people to Auckland and New Zealand from the Third World. It's a tap that can be turned on or off whenever needed. Life is that much worse in many of the cities that they come from that even a bad lot in Auckland is a massive amount better.

But Auckland is losing skilled people who want a viable lifestyle and future. The company I work for has already lost a number of highly skilled people from this, while only keeping a number of others because they can work from home most of the time.

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Yep remote working is great.

Im leaving myself because of traffic and population increase plus I want a chilled life thats more NZish in the country. With fishing and other watersports.

Have a look at this.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=118…

"I wouldn't own a house in Auckland even if you paid me to," said Wayne, trade director of the group that owns Super Cheap Autos.

"I don't believe you can honestly tell me that a house in this area is worth $1.3 million when you can go to the Gold Coast and buy a house a lot better with a pool and air conditioning and you are paying $550,000 - half the price," he said.

"I believe a lot of our young people will leave New Zealand solely because of housing. I have young guys working for me saying they will probably move overseas solely for that fact."

What is Auckland coming to when people who earn over $90K a year can't afford to live. National are losing people we dont want to lose. We are losing high skilled people in exchange for low skilled cheap labour.

As an aside to the story, I have a friend in Gold Coast with a pool and he bought his house for $500K.

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Virtually every Gen XY renting family I speak with is planning to move out of Auckland and/or NZ. My family lodged our own UK visa applications recently and if we're declined we'll just move to Australia. Either way, we're out. The voracious rentiers can have NZ and sell it offshore all they want. However they might find old age a bit uncomfortable in a declining state with youth in exodus.

I recall that Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, South Africa and Argentina were historically comfortable places for Smug Landed Old People. Smug Landies would do well to remember that a country is only as 1st world as the people who inhabit it. At the beginning of John Key's reign we were already solidly 2nd world.

A 3rd world NZ is only a matter of demographics, pressure and time.

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it's the same in most big cities, they are all struggling from traffic, pollution, high real estate prices, etc. Leaving the country for Aus or UK will not help much with escaping the "city". Good luck finding cheaper houses or apartments to rent or buy in Sydney or London. Stay in Auckland and accept the fact I reckon, the world is changing ,Auckland is growing. I doubt it'll ever be returning to "the good old days". Has London returned to those days? has Sydney? Youth will always flock to the cities no matter how expensive or dirty or congested the city is. It's where the jobs, and the entertainment is at.

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We aren't moving to London. The UK is so much more than London. We aren't "escaping the city". We are moving to another city. What we are doing is abandoning NZ and the creeping 3rd world poverty it offers us.

Kiwis blindly accept so much propaganda regarding how much "better" we have it here. Much of the "better" narrative is nonsense. I've already found delightful detached properties right in the central suburbs of my prospective city, and within catchment of good schooling ... for half the price of a comparable (but much colder and damper) Auckland property. With a higher salary and lower living costs. Better indeed.

For my family, I "accept" nothing. I demand a 1st world life for me and mine and we will have it.

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and likewise, New Zealand is so much more then Auckland

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You're correct, NZ is so much more than Auckland.

However that is irrelevant to my point, which is that NZ is pootled and my family is jumping ship, toodle pip!

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I cant believe your going to the UK over NZ. I lived their for over 10 years, it is crowded, polluted and weather is atrocious. We went 9 months without a good day once. You really feel the depression. We went to Spain for a bit, now I could live in Spain the weather was great, plus their are good beaches like Tarifa for windsurfing and kitesurfing. I lived all over the place in UK as well so I have a good understanding of the UK, my other half is Welsh as well so know Wales fairly well.

The beaches around North Wales, Devon, Cornwall are good but the water is freezing, but beaches down from London around Portsmouth, Brighton, Camber Sands are pretty grotty and crowded. Plus you have a lot of filth and run down buildings in UK with a whole lot of diversity as you would expect from 60million people and a country that has conquered half the world.

There are nice parts like around surrey, cotswalds, oxford, bath, stratford upon avon, cambridge etc. But you cant escape the weather. Good luck to you, but if your trying to escape the population increase, your going to wrong place.

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Beaches and weather. The mainstay propaganda of NZ human capital recruitment.

Somalia has lovely beaches and weather. Plenty of 3rd world countries have "beaches and weather" in abundance. Beaches and weather aren't everything.

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How to spot a money launder: Remuera has sold for $8.7 million, in what is believed to be this country's most expensive apartment sale. Big flashing RED LIGHT!

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Shhh.
Remember, this is making us all rich.

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Sadly it's a false economy nymad. If we carry on allowing relying on money launders to continue to purchase and push up house prices we're going to end up as Banana Republic.

So when are the second phase of the Anti Money Laundering rules meant to kick in for Estate Agents?

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That's what they said about the Albanian Ponzi.

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Yeah shush mate, our foreign overlords want to be able to come here, buy up at one price, wait a couple of years and sell for 80% more.

Don't rain on their parade man. They 'need' to be able to do this. And there's absolutely 'nothing' that can be done about it. After all, the government says it's only 3% of sales. So you know, there's actually no problem at all.

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The talk of a crash in Auckland house prices is mistaken.

No crash is imminent. House prices in Auckland, Wellington and other centres are likely to increase by a few per cent over the next year or two.

While being able to pick up Auckland properties at very cheap prices would be an attractive option to many people who comment here (including me!) it's in the realm of wishful thinking. It ain't going to be reality. )-;

I have empathy - especially for first home buyers and older people who would like their own roof over their heads.

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Yeah really: "At City Sales' auction on Wednesday, four apartments were offered but only one was sold under the hammer".

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tothepoint - you don't know that with any certainty, nobody could. And because you say it with such certainty, I know that you're making stuff up. So why do you need to convince others that there won't be a crash? I don't know if there will be one - but there might be. It's always a possibility.

So, how many investment properties do you own?

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Dog boxes cannot be compared to to luxury apartments. The well off richly deserve their rewards because of their enterprise and hard work.
To look though this apartment and see what you should aspire to instead of endless of endless whinging and whining, click here:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction…

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Capital gains on properties and shares isn't due to hard work.

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No, but getting yourself into a position to capitalise on those gains can definitely be hard work and merits its rewards. Not to mention the capital gains which people add to their assets themselves, like renovating and adding value to a property- that can be hard work.

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Ah yes, but the rich need the poor to clean, provide security, pander to their needs.
Personally I think the plan for Auckland is the same as London, we copy everything else for government policy, so why not...
Here is an article on life in London modern day poor.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/25/london-property-squeeze…
No correspondance will be entered into...too much hot air already.

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Hadn't you heard of the plan to build a Soweto out by the Airport?

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So buyers of %8.7 mio luxury apartments go to Trade Me? Really? Or is it just advertised there so the marketer as "proof" of actual marketing activation costs?

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I would expect solid wood cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom for 8+ million.

Stunning views though!

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65 percent of properties are being passed in at auction , sales have collapsed, one property from 550000 will have no bearing on Auckland property values unwinding. One smart seller.

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It says the apartment sold in 2005 for 4.7M, now 12 years later it's $8.7M, that's a perfectly average long-term compounding of 5% per annum. It would have been worth around $2.5M in 1993 and it will be roughly $16M in 2029. Simple

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Nope. You can do simple math, not forecasting.

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Funny! :-)

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This is where I'd like to see an inflation adjust chart for NZ house prices 1900 onwards - so we can see how extreme house price appreciation has been the last 15-20 years. Historically, I think we're in the middle of a massive anomaly, but its difficult to point out without a decent chart.

Anyone know if this type of chart has been put together? Similar to what Shiller did for USA house prices.

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RBNZ have house prices back to 1974 and CPI to 1920, I think.

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I'm surprised that this hasn't been done too. Maybe someone at interest.co.nz would take it on, in light of the perpetually negligent government?

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Do any of the interest.co.nz editors know if there is historical inflated adjusted house price index data available from a source somewhere? Along the lines of the case shiller index for the US? The bubble they had there sticks out like a sore thumb when plotted on an inflation adjust chart and you see the general trend for real estate returns in the long term (not much above inflation in reality - other than the bubble) - as well as historical trends for house prices vs population growth vs interest rates. First looked at it a few years ago when reading Irrational Exuberance.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/irrational-…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case%E2%80%93Shiller_index

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case%E2%80%93Shiller_index#/media/File:Ca…

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What could possibly go wrong...

"Toronto Homeowners Are Suddenly in a Rush to Sell"

"Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz warning the gains were unsustainable. Worries about a market bubble morphed into nervousness about whether Canada might be on the brink of a financial meltdown. Rising household debt and runaway housing prices led to credit rating downgrades for the country’s six biggest banks this month by Moody’s Investors Service."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-24/toronto-bidding-wars…

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Yes and there's this from just over the pond which David highlighted this morning: -

Chinese investors pull out of Melbourne apartment market
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-25/chinese-investors-pull-out-of-mel…

Quote: Chinese investors are pulling out of Melbourne's apartment market, prompting a downturn.

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That's ok, the spruikers can just hock off surplus Melbourne apartments to Kiwi suckers instead.

http://www.centralequity.com.au/

These jokers are still selling apartments to the unsophisticated in shopping centres around Auckland.

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I believe the slum of Mumbai was leasehold, 100 year lease.
Plenty of flat land on the intertidal zone of the Manakau, on the approach path.
And no building regs apply.

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That apartment is actually a #Goodbuy!
You get to own the focal point at the heart of Elysium. That wont be cheap!
Like your very own Eye of Sauron.
The 'prime-est' piece of real estate in one of the 'good-est' countries in the globalised world.

People need to understand that the world has radically changed. We cannot return to the past without giving up much that we now recognise as being wonderfully good. The most perfect system, one that lasted for a thousand years, was the Byzantine Empire. Few would be willing to return to that way of living however as it would involve giving up a lot of individual freedom and adopting policies that would be considered enormously politically incorrect.

The consciousness of the people, especially of the young people, is quite different today. I was heartened this week, listening to my favourite radio station, BFM, who are having a "Fu#k Fascism Week" to be lectured by members of the alternative community about the evil ways of our ancestors. To be sure we live in dystopian times but it is jolly interesting time to be alive.

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Interesting times indeed.

The older generations' politicians keen to oversee a sell-off to foreign buyers of this Elysium for their own short term gain, at the expense of the younger generations born in NZ. Much the same as they're happy to cast aside good environmental outcomes in favour of short term profits.

I can only imagine a young Kiwi thinking it's a good idea to vote for National if they a) either think their family is well-resourced enough to defend its patch in the long term, or b) simply don't have a clue.

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Yup it's looking pretty bad

https://youtu.be/CvKxAISiJoI

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If you think property like that is a good buy then you should be able to convince other investors that it is a good buy and buy it yourself. You should be able to raise hundreds of millions as NZ is the golden goose and property prices will go up forever. Everyone wants to move here and our market is massive with so many rich people here willing to pay over the top prices. Easy money.

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It is not a good buy. I live less than 1km from Kingsridge Apartment and it is not a big fuss. Yes the sea view is great but it is on a busy road so turning out would be a annoying. I don't think it is worth $8.7m and I wouldn't pay over $1m for it myself. All the overcooked house prices in Remuera need to come down > 50% to make it more realistic for the younger generation to buy into the area. If I were to sell my house now I will only sell it to a young local family at a very low price, not some overseas buyer bidding on the phone from Shanghai. https://nz.hougarden.com/402424-remuera-road-remuera-auckland-city-auck…

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I daresay that in a decade's time (around 2117), $8.7m for a top-end luxury apartment in Auckland will seem very cheap.

People will look back at 2017 and say "those were the good old days" - if only I'd bought in then.

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Of course, but try telling that to a few of the above commentators. I've been in the game for a long time and looking back, property always looks cheap. Yes right now the market is overcooked and there will be a small correction, that's called the property cycle but in 10-12 years time, houses will be much more expensive, just like they were cheaper 10 years ago and cheaper still 20 years ago, and yet much cheaper 40 years ago. Some tell me I can't predict the future, true but looking at the past surely gives a good clue and "it won't be different this time"

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Yvil - any international experience. Or NZ only?

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There is no such data at hand for NZ property prices but here are the inflation adjusted property values for the U.S.A
You will note that there is absolutely zero factual data to support your statement that house prices go up decade after decade. In the States you can see that once adjusted for inflation house prices remained relatively static from the mid 1950's until the late 1990's. We then saw several things happen, MOST women began joining the labour force (during previous decades women certainly increased in the work force, but by the late 90's the majority had) this meant that there were two salaries available to push up house values and there was the mass adoption of the internet, a major, major societal and technological advancement that changed the face of almost every aspect of the developed world, this led to complex technological financialisation (this led to a deviation to the historical norm). And then you will see that after the GFC, house prices in the USA went down to the same level (ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION) that they had been at since the late 1950's

So yes, house prices do go up a lot if you ignore inflation, but why would you do that? Everything else has gone up in value too, so the relative value is not the impressive figure that you keep mentioning.

I highly doubt the inflation adjusted figures for NZ house prices are much different to the States over the last 60 years.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kjOHoEKbH7A/ULQgiAZ45RI/AAAAAAAABh4/8U-RJx1-p…

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Remuera is in NZ not USA

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Why don't you buy them then with your investors. Would be easy to convince them. Easy money.

I would like to know who can afford them. Not your average NZer. And when property is 13 times income who will lend and who will buy. Who really cares if its a good buy. If no one can afford it where do your buyers come from. Do you think wages will increase at this pace, doubt it.

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I think they're generally counting on foreigners displacing the local Kiwi population.

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Zachary, both 59 and 61 Orakei Road sold under the hammer within weeks in the market. Both went for around the entry level at $2m each. Where do you think the market is at now in DGZ?
https://www.barfoot.co.nz/594476
http://rwremuera.co.nz/auckland/remuera/61-orakei-road-10259479/

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Double-GZ, certainly the market in the DGZ looks to remain healthy. If those two properties sold for 2m each they got the Homes.co.nz high figure. All good properties in good locations are still very marketable. Where you would have some trouble now is with less than average properties but wanting a good price or leaky style homes.
This house here for instance has some features that make it less popular (Steep driveway, attached, needs some renovations) and is sitting on the market for longer than usual. Probably still a good buy though as the kitchen and lounge has a great view:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction…

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Somebody may have read my comment that this property was a good buy as it is now sold.

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Yay! *Clap Clap*

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.

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