There were so many people at this week's Ray White City Apartments auction in Auckland that they were spilling out on to the street.
The agency's director Phil Horrobin was understandably pleased at the turnout, especially as there were only four apartments on offer and one of them was actually a warehouse, but he wondered what he would have to do to accommodate the crush of hopeful buyers as people crowded around the front door to Ray White's Lorne St office trying to get a glimpse of the action within.
And they weren't tyre kickers either.
These were serious buyers and they were bidding against each other with determined enthusiasm, with the first three apartments selling under the hammer, including a studio apartment with a car park and just enough room to swing a kitten which sold for nearly $11,500 per square metre, and another which had only been purchased in April and fetched $143,000 more than it had been bought for then.
The fourth property offered was a 272 square metre warehouse in Eden Terrace that was doubling as live in accommodation and it also attracted seriously competitive bids. But when these stalled at $1.135 million it was passed in for sale by negotiation.
The full results are below:
- 2H/23 Emily Place. Silo building. A vacant, fully furnished 25 square metre studio with a car park. Sold for $287,000. According to QV.co.nz the unit was last sold for $178,000 in 2012. Rates were $910 and $3944. The agent was Victor Liu.
- 308/145 Symonds St. Madison House. A vacant, 64 square metre, fully furnished, two bedroom apartment. Sold for $396,000. Rates were $991 and the body corporate levy $4538. The agent was Adele Keane.
- 501/70 Pitt St. The Chatham. A 65 square metre, two bedroom, corner apartment with good sized balcony and a car park. Vacant. Sold for $598,000. According to QV.co.nz the unit was previously sold for $455,000 in April this year and prior to that was sold for $375,000 in July 2012. The agents were Mitch Agnew and Ryan Bridgman.
- 26 Fleet St, Eden Terrace. A 272 square metre warehouse/office that had been partially converted to apartment use. It was on a 407 square metre site with four car parks and was zoned mixed use and was large enough under current rules for a 14 unit development. Offered with vacant possession and according to its promotional material was offered at short notice as an opportunity that demanded "urgent action." There were several competing bidders for the property but when the bids stalled at $1.135 million, auctioneer Ted Ingram had a short discussion with the vendor and it was passed in for sale by negotiation. The agent was Krister Samuel. According to QV.co.nz the property was previously sold for $1.125 million in 2013.
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5 Comments
$11,500 per square metre. In Manhattan, the cheapest equivalent would be NZD1870 per square meter while the most expensive in NY is NZD17,396 per square metre.
The PPSM for the first apartment is higher than the most expensive in Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island.
Well done Auckland. You've come of age.
Ahh....yeah, you're right. So actually, it's only more expensive than the most expensive in the Bronx and Staten Island. Nevertheless, it's almost double what you would pay per square foot in some parts of Manhattan.
In Auckland when they get very small, like this one, the metre rate shoots up as the total cost is relatively low. A similar but bigger unit would be 2/3 or 3/4 of this metre rate. Also the supposedly cheap NY prices you note are in co-ops which is not same as a freehold here - probably more like leasehold.
Those top end NY apartments have huge metre rates and are big (like the reported NZ$129,000,000 for a 1000sqm unit).
Yes Bob, I noticed that the range in Manhattan is quite wide. Auckland seems to be following something more like the Japan phenomenon where the smaller the apartment, the higher the cost per meter, foot, tsubo. That was the case in Japan but now it's more cost-effective to buy larger apartments. If the bubble ever bursts in Auckland, we might see a similar scenario.
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