MANN KITCHENS & BATHROOMS

We asked Andrew Mann, to tell us more about his business. Firstly, tell us the back story.

It's kind of ironic as I look back in history and my great grandad was a builder in the 1930s. He built a lot of villas around Herne Bay and Ponsonby and my grandmother lived in Herne Bay for years. So, there’s a connection to the area and I have always appreciated the history and vibe that the area still creates today.

I’ve always enjoyed the finishing side of building, so it was natural to move into cabinetry, kitchens and bathrooms as I got older. Attention to detail has always been in the family, as my brother and father are engineers.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Normally a couple of cups of coffee. With the business, it’s about having a passion for design. Dreaming up a concept with a client, planning all the details and seeing the finish result is still a huge buzz for me.

What’s Mann Kitchens and Bathrooms' point of difference?

From being a director in a medium-sized company, this business comes with a lot of experience.

From building houses to installing kitchens. Seeing all the rights and wrongs in design over the last 30 years has been a priceless experience.

We aren’t trying to manufacture 10 kitchens a week. We keep our overheads down, which results in creating better pricing for the customer.

It's more of a personalised experience, with one port of call. So, all the details are managed resulting in happy customers. Please get in touch with any questions.

MANN KITCHENS & BATHROOMS, T: 021 644 784, E: mannkitchensnz@gmail.com

BLAIR HADDOW: TREND-DEFYING REAL ESTATE TSUNAMI SWAMPS LEADING TOP SALESMAN WITH NEW LISTINGS

Leading Greater Ponsonby real estate agent Blair Haddow is defying property industry norms and perceptions for June being the start of the ‘quiet’ winter season, by bringing an incredible six new properties to the market for sale in the space of just two weeks after returning from holiday in Mexico.

The winter period over June to August is traditionally associated by Kiwis as the calendar quarter where residential property sellers retrench from the market – preferring instead to wait until the buyer market thaws out in spring in the lead up to Christmas.

Not so for Blair Haddow, the busiest salesperson in the Bayleys Ponsonby office – both a brand and a branch which is renowned for servicing a sizeable market share of listing and selling homes in Auckland’s inner-west city suburbs.

Blair Haddow recently returned from a well-deserved vacation in the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, where he was warmly hosted as part of Bayleys Real Estate’s Top Achiever’s Trip rewarding the agency’s best performing salespeople for their outstanding sales achievements over the past financial year.

Since landing back in Ponsonby and the chills of an Auckland winter, Blair Haddow and his associates Vanya Ivanova and Keenin Whitcher have been spending long hours preparing marketing collateral to support the portfolio of new homes for sale in the area and launching them onto the market.

The suite of highly desirable residences Blair is now marketing for sale through Bayleys Ponsonby features:

1005/8 Hereford Street in Freemans Bay – a very chic three-bedroom, two-bathroom corner apartment on the 10th floor of the Hereford Residences tower, complete with two secure car parks and shared use of the location’s gym, infinity pool and library/games room.

18 Bayfield Road in Ponsonby – a totally remodelled and elegant four-bedroom, two-living, two-bathroom split level villa featuring a huge open plan living and entertaining area leading out to the private back deck and hedged garden.

· 5 Rawene Avenue in Westmere – a very rare 721-square metre block of bare, flat undeveloped land which comes complete with subdivision plans allowing for two substantial homes to be built on the site, or for a blank canvas location to accommodate a home of substance sitting one row back from the waterfront.

11D/8 Howe Street in Freemans Bay – a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-level penthouse apartment in the Highgate Tower, with stunning unobstructed views over the city immediately below, and the Waitematā Harbour beyond. The night vista from the apartment is beyond belief as it towers above the motorway junctions and other lowrise apartment blocks below – being so very handy to both the central city, and K’Road retail and hospitality precinct.

· 233 Jervois Road in Herne Bay – a gigantic six-bedroom, four-bathroom family bungalow home of some 490-square metres, offering a raft of room configurations and uses including work from home office space, complete with garaging for four cars, and an inground swimming pool at the rear.

· 18B Apirana Avenue in Glen Innes – a plush stylish threebedroom, two-bathroom ‘zen-like’ dwelling which has been modernised to create an urban oasis of peace and warm functionality.

All six of the homes can be viewed on the Bayleys Ponsonby website under Blair Haddow’s page. Blair said he was stunned at the unprecedented volume of June residential property listing activity he had returned to.

“This is the sort of frenetic listing activity we’d normally be expecting to experience in November or February, so to see this trend occurring in June really is ‘one out of the box’." It is testament to Blair's long-established profile and reputation for getting deals done around Greater Ponsonby.

“These six homes, along with others that I am marketing with asking prices, give purchasers a real selection of buying opportunities. In saying that, the styles, configurations and locations of each of these homes really do offer something different from the next. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if all of them sell within a very short time frame.” blair.haddow@bayleys.co.nz www.facebook.com/BlairHaddowResidential

With many of Blair Haddow’s auctions coinciding with the distribution of the July edition of Ponsonby News, be sure to keep an eye out in the August edition for an update on the sales prices expected to be achieved from the bidding.