– The owner of a green villa near Dress Smart mall is selling it two months after purchase.
– The property, bought for $992,000 in July, is back on the market due to “unexpected personal commitments”.
– The villa, in a business centre zone with a 27-metre height limit, offers significant potential.
The new owner of a dilapidated green villa wedged between Auckland’s Dress Smart mall and office buildings has put it back on the market for sale two months after buying it.
Dress Smart shoppers will know the two-bedroom Onehunga property well. It is surrounded by high concrete walls and looks like the house in the blockbuster Pixar movie Up.
The vendor, a land-banker, bought the property for $992,000 in July and had only just taken possession at the end of last month. He had initially planned to hold on to the site long-term and wait for future private buyers to appear.
The Church Street villa is the last remaining house in what is now a commercial area. Photo / Supplied
He told OneRoof this week he was selling it much earlier than planned because of “unexpected personal commitments”.
“I purchased this property because I could see its potential and the value of such a great section,” he told OneRoof.
“I’ll unfortunately have to leave this fantastic opportunity for the next owner to make the most of the property’s potential.”
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Bayleys listing agent Jock Kooger said it was always tricky reselling a property in such a short period because the first question people always asked was why it was back on the market so quickly.
But he added that someone would only turn around a great property so quickly if there was a reason to do so, and in this case, it was timing and opportunity.
“Sometimes circumstances change. But events like this are a second chance for those who missed out the first time around.”
The house is being pitched to businesses or renovators. Photo / Supplied
Kooger said the property had plenty of potential and would be a great spot for business or someone with an amazing vision to restore the original villa.
The business centre zone restricts the height of any new building on the 594sqm site to 27 metres, which rules out apartment towers or large office blocks. The property also sits in a flood zone.
The property first hit the market this year as an estate sale following the death of the previous owner, Joy McHardie. She had held onto the villa for 60 years and had seen in recent decades the rise of commercial buildings, including Dress Smart’s carpark, around it.
It was thought that Dress Smart’s overseas owner, Lendlease, would be first in line to buy the property when it first hit the market in February this year. However, the property fund passed on the opportunity.
OneRoof previously reported that McHardie had rebuffed multiple offers from developers for at least 30 years.
She moved to the villa at 118 Church Street with her family in the 1950s.
She then watched on as the old cottages around her were removed one by one as the strip was rezoned for commercial buildings. The arrival of Dress Smart in 1995 saw her home overshadowed by the mall’s parking zone.
McHardie lived at the villa until 2016, when she moved into a rest home. When she died in 2021, her family held on to the house because of how much it had meant to her, only deciding to sell this year.
– 118 Church Street, in Onehunga, Auckland, goes to auction on September 17