{"id":562417,"date":"2026-08-08T03:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562417\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:18:16","slug":"what-is-it-wellsfords-shoebox-house-for-sale-with-399k-price-tag-all-things-property-under-oneroof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562417\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What is it?\u2019: Wellsford\u2019s shoebox house for sale with $399k price tag, All things property, under OneRoof"},"content":{"rendered":"

– The unusual two-bedroom Wellsford house, formerly a water tank, is listed for $399,000.<\/p>\n

– The home is likely to attract investors or buyers wanting a \u201cunique, weird and wonderful\u201d home.<\/p>\n

– Wellsford\u2019s lower prices are attracting first-home buyers, while infrastructure projects could accelerate the town\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

A shoebox-shaped house plonked in a car park on Wellsford\u2019s main street in Rodney is the talk of the town. <\/p>\n

Raine & Horne agent Jon Standbrook has just listed the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house at 167 Rodney Street<\/a>. It\u2019s looking for $399,000, but the questions Standbrook has been fielding have nothing to do with the price.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people in general, if you asked them what it is, they wouldn\u2019t have a clue, but it\u2019s there stuck in the middle of a car park or what looks like a car park.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 84sqm property, which sits on a freehold 468sqm section, is owned by a commercial property investor. He bought it at a mortgagee sale along with a block of retail shops tenanted by a gift shop, hairdressers and other businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s selling this title off because it\u2019s of no consequence or use for him,\u201d Standbrook told OneRoof.<\/p>\n

\"Wellsford\u2019s<\/p>\n

The two-bedroom property needs to be brought up to healthy homes standard. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\"Wellsford\u2019s<\/p>\n

The lounge is downstairs, with the bedrooms and kitchen upstairs. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

He believes the property began life in the 1930s as one of Wellsford\u2019s water storage tanks. It was later turned into a house, with the concrete walls cut so windows could be installed and fibre cement planks added outside to make it more attractive.<\/p>\n

Standbrook said there were two very different buyer groups the \u201ccube\u201d would attract.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s likely either to be an investor who will buy it and continue to rent it out subject to getting it up to healthy homes standard or someone who wants a little bit of weird and wonderful to have as their home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wellsford\u2019s affordability was a huge selling point for people, Standbrook said.<\/p>\n

His vendor had purposely priced 167 Rodney Street competitively, he said. \u201cI\u2019m not aware there\u2019s any property that sold for less than $400,000, and certainly I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any property asking for less than $400,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discover more:<\/p>\n

– Mortgagee woes for property developer who did jail time<\/a><\/p>\n

– The best \u2018Noddy homes\u2019 for sale in NZ: R<\/a>oger Walker originals up for grabs<\/a><\/p>\n

– Junk-filled home with worst luck ever returns to market after fire and failed sale<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year there were just two sales for $400,000 or under, according to OneRoof-Valocity data. A two-bedroom unit on Coronation Street, in Te Hana, sold for $390,000, while a 1ha property with an unconsented dwelling on Ingleton Road fetched $400,000.<\/p>\n

Wellsford \u2013 often referred to as Warkworth\u2019s cheaper cousin \u2013 has been attracting strong interest from first-home buyers in the last six to nine months as Aucklanders looked to move a bit further north to get on the property ladder, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo buy a lifestyle property in Warkworth, which would be the next closest town, you are talking significantly more,\u201d Standbrook said.<\/p>\n

Wellsford prices had dropped over the last few years, he said, noting that standalone homes traded around the $600,000 mark, while entry-level lifestyle properties started at $800,000.<\/p>\n

Standbrook said the town was on track to grow, pointing to new infrastructure projects in the area. \u201cThe whole demographic of Wellsford has the potential to really have a little boom happening. The future prognosis for Wellsford is I think very good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a rural service town, but with a changing future in my opinion. What Warkworth was 30 or 40 years back, Wellsford has got that potential. I think over the next six or seven years it will take on another direction of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harcourts agent Abbey Collins said Wellsford was popular with first-home buyers at the moment. About 75% of them were either in their 50s or families who already lived in Wellsford and could finally afford to buy, while the remaining 25% were moving from Warkworth, the North Shore and the Hibiscus Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve had a lot of properties in the low to mid-$500,000s to the mid-$700,000s, and that\u2013s kind of where the first-home buyers have been coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

– 167 Rodney Street, Wellsford, Auckland, is for sale for $399,000<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"– The unusual two-bedroom Wellsford house, formerly a water tank, is listed for $399,000. – The home is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,1258,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-562417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-latest-news","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}