Real estate company pleased with auction results

ALTHOUGH the auctioneer’s gavel wasn’t overused, Bayleys Queenstown’s owners are happy with the results of a wellattended megaauction held yesterday.

The auction of 22 residential properties, comprising 20 in Queenstown and one each in Gore and Cromwell, was regarded as a market barometer following the Covid19 crisis.

Five sold under the hammer, a sixth sold before the auction and the remainder were passed in, although the majority attracted bids.

However, executive director Stacy Coburn was confident at least three postauction deals would also be concluded this weekend.

The first two properties on offer, homes at Shotover Country, sold under the hammer for $950,000 and $800,000.

A property at entrylevel Bridesdale Farm sold for $800,000 after initially being passed in at $750,000.

A sevenbedroom home at Shotover Country, completed last year, sold for $1,250,000.

A threebedroom home in Gore sold for $266,000.

And a sixbedroom Lower Shotover home, originally scheduled for auction, sold preauction for $1,422,000, more than $100,000 over the preauction offer.

As the first major Queenstown auction since lockdown, it proved the market is still in a settlingdown period, Mr Coburn said.

‘‘I think as things settle down and we get a few more benchmark sales, people will see where the values are.

‘‘But certainly the auction process has flushed out people to work with, for the vendors, and I’m sure a lot more deals will conclude postauction.’’

Mr Coburn said he was certain that if another sales method, like fixedprice marketing, had been used, ‘‘we wouldn’t have sold anything’’.

The auction was conducted by Bayleys’ national auction manager Conor Patton, from Auckland.