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OneRoof.co.nz
MARKET WATCH: TROPHY HOMES
ARGYLE STREET, HERNE BAY, AUCKLAND
$22m
‘THERE’S A BIT OF ONE-UPMANSHIP GOING ON’ House price records seem to be tumbling every week, with the top end of the market benefiting from a sea of wealth and buyers who just want to treat themselves to a new mansion. CATHERINE MASTERS reports.
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gents who deal in top-of-the-line luxury real estate – in both the $5m-$10m and $10m-$20m-plus bands – say demand has not let up over the past 12 months. OneRoof analysis of all se!led sales in the year to November 15 shows 11 properties fetched between $10m and $22m – and a further 74 properties fetched between $5m and $10m. More are set to join them on the list, with OneRoof learning of several record deals that have yet to se!le. The quantity of big sales partly reflects the amount of money circulating around New Zealand but it is also the result of the rapid escalation in property values that took place after the first Covid lockdown. A lot of Kiwis have used those gains to upscale to a new home or buy a bach, or, in the case of some at the top end of the market, buy a second or third luxury property. Most of the top sales, both se!led and unse!led, are in Auckland, in Herne Bay and Remuera, but a handful of big money deals have taken place in Queenstown, including two homes that sold for around $17m each. There have also been large sales in Wanaka, Christchurch, Tauranga and Hastings.
Luxury agency Wall Real Estate has its name on many of the big deals that have taken place this year, including the record-breaking $22m for a mansion in Herne Bay. It’s also the agency behind the all-time residential sale price record in New Zealand - $39m for a huge mansion in Auckland’s Orakei. That record could tumble if the superpenthouse at the top of the Pacifica, New
INANGA LANE, OMAHA
$7.375m
Zealand’s tallest residential apartment tower, sells for its list price of just $42m. That listing is being marketed by New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Pene Milne, who brokered last year’s top sale, $24m for a waterfront mansion in Westmere. Graham Wall, who runs Wall Real Estate with
his two sons, says his clientele includes superwealthy people who live first in Herne Bay, move to Remuera for the grammar schools, then move back to Herne Bay. The highest known sale price of 2021 is $23.5m, paid for a huge waterfront property on Marine Parade in Herne Bay. Rich-lister property developer Kurt Gibbons bought the home – which boasts one of the city’s widest beach fronts earlier this year, but the sale has yet to se!le. Clipping at its heels was the $22m the Walls got for Gibbons’ former home on Argyle Street, also in Herne Bay. This luxury property was marketed as a “once in a lifetime” opportunity and both homes were part of the “Herne Bay shuffle” saw the Walls close deals on four luxury homes in the suburb for a combined total of $60m-plus. Herne Bay also notched up a $14m sale in March, for a large waterfront home on Sarsfield Street. The agents who found the buyer, Barfoot & Thompson’s Carl Madsen and Chris Batchelor, told OneRoof at the time they were shocked at the level of competition for the house. Outside of Auckland, there have only been a handful of comparatively large sales – but two very large ones which have yet to se!le included Ray White Queenstown’s sale of a luxury lodge in Twin Peak View, in Glenorchy, which fetched $17m in October, and a neighbouring property that went for $17.5m earlier in the year. Other big sales this year include the $6m paid for a five-bedroom home in the centre of Wellington; $5.6m for a beachfront home in
