Lucky to find a million-dollar do-up

Phil Ivey and Michelle Dowd - pictured with Ryder, Ethan, Emerson Ivey and Kate Anderson - have bought "a bit of a dog" next door. Photo / Doug Sherring

Million-dollar do-ups are going, going, gone almost every week in the hot inner-city suburbs of Auckland.

Phil Ivey, a film production designer, bought 9 Sefton Ave in Grey Lynn last week for $1,011,468 and admits the million-dollar mark was a daunting figure to get his head around - even though he owned the property next door at No7.

"I'm selling up and moving next door, but it's a bit of a dog," he said. "It hasn't been loved at all. Actually, I was overseas and bid by phone and I did eventually sit down and think: 'I've just paid a million dollars for an absolute sh***er'."

New data from Quotable Value reveals 4600 streets in New Zealand have at least one property with a current value of more than $1 million. In October alone, more than 325 properties nationally sold for more than $1 million each.

Ivey, with wife Michelle Dowd and kids Ethan, 8, and 5-year-old twins Emerson and Ryder, plans to demolish the house and start again from scratch. They have lived at No7 for 10 years, completing renovations there just over eight years ago. Ivey didn't want to say what No7 may fetch, but it was listed this week.

Andrew Cosgrave, from Barfoot & Thompson, said he'd been selling do-ups in Grey Lynn and further afield at Westmere for about a year.

"These properties require hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of renovations. The biggest issue with them is that they have three bedrooms and one bathroom when the typical expectation these days is for four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

"You have to protect the way the property looks from the front so there is very little you can do there.

"A lot of them require modern renovations out the back to make them liveable. Often they are on a 400-450sq m site, so there's normally room at the back."

Another classic example of a million-dollar do-up sold recently was 36 Dryden St in Grey Lynn which went for $1,070,000.

Cosgrave said the housing stock on full sites around the million-dollar mark in Grey Lynn was diminishing as they were being renovated for modern living.

Many properties have been tenanted for many years but landlords were finding the rental return didn't compare with what they could sell for.

"In most cases, they get plans drawn up to renovate then come to us and ask what sort of price they can get to sell as they are. They look at the price of the do-up versus the sale and make a decision."