Auction with $1 reserve attracts 43 bidders to Thames waterfront property

A slip knocked this red-stickered house off its foundations - the skew is not the camera - but that didn't stop it being a very hot property over the weekend.

The house, in a prime waterfront position in Thornton Bay on the Thames Coast Rd, was auctioned with a $1 reserve on Saturday. And listing agent Steven Bridson of Harcourts says the vendors were quite prepared to let the property go for "$1 or whatever".

As it happened, bidding started at $2, and the person who made that bid ended up buying the house, paying $375,000 for the property.

"We had 43 bidders; 26 were online, seven on the phone and 10 in the room," Bridson says. "Everyone tried to bid, but the price jumped too quickly for some of them. It quickly went up to $350,000, but that last $25,000 was fought hard between three bidders.

"Many times, I was about to bring down the hammer, and there would be another bid. One person was going up in small increments, while another was taking big jumps. There were a few laughs - and 70 people in the room. Both the vendors and buyer are very happy."

Bridson says the buyer was already on the Harcourts database and got wind of the property coming on the market very early. "By the time the auction came around, he had done all his preparation, and had everything in a row ready to go."

The agent says the new owner has plans to clean it up, remove the house and build a single-level holiday home the whole family can use - many already live on the peninsula. It will also be a house to retire in."

Dennis Raines, 95, who lived in the house, has taken his insurance money and bought a unit in town near the hospital. Bridson says there was a positive spin-off: "The family were trying to get him to leave the old house and come into town. The property needed a lot of maintenance, and it was getting a bit much."

Raines slept through the catastrophe happening around him during the Auckland Anniversary floods - he was rescued by a handyman who came to check on him.

His son, Clive, earlier told Checkpoint: "Fortunately [Dennis] was sleeping at the front of the house and Civil Defence and police were really good at evacuating him. The landslips only affected the rear of the house, but of course, the pressure of it did push it off the foundations - hence the red sticker.

"But look, he's relatively happy where he is now. But I think that the stress, and the inability to pay to rebuild, really didn't give him any options."

Clive Raines said the property held a lot of appeal: "It's a beautiful bay, it's a beachfront property... It's, I think, around 807 square metres. You know, it potentially is going to be a bargain for someone, but it's attracted a lot of interest, and you know, we'll go with what the market decides."

- This story was first published by Stuff