At the opposite end of the scale, the Rose Rd property - a reproduction 2012 villa on 455sq m - boasts four bathrooms, a swimming pool and two off-street parks, a luxury in the suburb.
Jan and Grahame Carey bought the house in 2012 for $2.12m, and sold it unchanged this week. A year earlier the original home and section sold for $650,000. The pre-1914 home was removed and the OJO Architectural Services-designed white villa was built.
Jan Carey said she was "not quite" expecting it to reach the $3m mark, but was "delighted to see the house go to a family" after her sons had left home. "We are downsizing because we don't need the five bedrooms now but we will stay in the area," she said.
"It is lovely to be able to go up to Ponsonby Rd for a meal without taking the car."
Prices in the city fringe area have escalated in the past year with figures from qv.co.nz e-valuer showing the top 10 recent sales all well over $2m. The previous record in Grey Lynn was held by 12 Tutanekai St, which sold for $2.77m in May.
The average Auckland house price has hit a record $720,000 - but there are 26 suburbs with average prices over $1m.
Ray White agent Simon Damerell would not comment on specific sales but said Grey Lynn was mirroring what all fringe suburbs were doing in cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and London.
The character of the area had been preserved because the traditionally smaller sections could not be subdivided. Council restrictions also meant new builds were in keeping with other homes.
"In other wealthy parts of town you can take off a villa and build six townhouses. You can't do that around here."
The building of apartments and terraced houses had brought more people, cafes and businesses to the area, and made the villa and bungalows even more attractive.
Chief economist for the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, Shamubeel Eaqub, said it was hard to predict how long prices in the area would keep rising.
"So much is behaviour driven ..." he said. "What I will say is the numbers we are looking at in the Auckland market are extremely high. They are unaffordable and they are unattainable."
There was not a shortage of housing stock in Auckland, but there was a shortage of houses to buy. Rents had not increased at the same level house prices had, which meant there was not actually a physical housing shortage.
