Award-winning home could break price record
It’s tipped to break the $4m barrier
Amulti-award-winning home has hit the market in Hamilton and could well break price records when it sells. The sprawling four-bedroom, fourbathroom property at 92 Braid Road, in St Andrews, which overlooks the Waikato River and St Andrews golf course, is tipped to fetch more than $4 million – a feat achieved only by just a few homes in the city.
The city’s highest sale price goes back to 2021 when former mayor Andrew King sold his central Hamilton bungalow on Liverpool Street for development purposes for $5.5m, while the second is held by a waterfront property on Lake Crescent that sold at the end of the same year for $4.65m.
More recently a property on River Road, in Flagstaff, that was almost considered a lifestyle property, was poised to sell for $4.75m last year until the initial deal crashed and it sold several months later to another buyer for $4.45m.
It was closely followed by a home on Braid Road, in St Andrews, that sold at the end of 2022 for $4.375m after taking a price reduction of almost $2m over eight months.
Now just several doors away, another modern 413sqm home at No.92 has hit the market.
Bayleys listing agent Rachel Waldegrave said it was possibly the best home in Hamilton and certainly had all the right ingredients to be that. It was backed by a creative owner, designed by renowned Hamilton architect Noel Jessop and built by the prestigious Waikato builder CJW Build who had carried out an immaculate finish.
“It’s certainly the nicest property that I’ve brought to the market in over 10 years of real estate,” she said.
“This one is very special. It sounds corny, but this coming to the market is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you won’t see another house like this in Hamilton City for a very long time.”
The house, which includes a striking use of brick, cedar and glass, also picked up multiple Master Builder Awards when it was completed in 2015 including a regional gold, a lifestyle interior design award and a lifestyle bathroom award. It was also named a national finalist.
The “hotel suite-like” master bedroom is upstairs and away from the rest of the house, while the remaining bedrooms are in a separate wing away from the living areas.
The house stretches along the ridgeline providing 180-degree views across the golf course and out to the
river. The 1656sqm section also allowed plenty of room to add a pool, Waldegrave added.
“St Andrews is seen as a really highcalibre neighbourhood – you’ve got the convenience of being handy to the CBD and yet it’s still a lovely quiet residential neighbourhood of highquality homes and you’ve got St Andrews golf course and the river paths right on your doorstep.”
Waldegrave properties in Hamilton with a water aspect – whether it be the lake or river – generally tended to fetch a premium. It was also the common denominator in all the Hamilton sales that had broken passed the
$4m mark.
“It’s such a finite resource. There’s only a certain number of properties that will have the water view – whether that’s river, lake or the ocean, and people place additional value on being able to secure those types of properties.”
Waldegrave said one of the owners was really creative and designfocused, which was behind their decision to sell and embark on another project.
The home is already attracting interest from both overseas buyers and those in other parts of the country such as Auckland looking for
either a family home or an executive couple who loves to entertain and host family and friends.
She was also not ruling out people in the Waikato buying it.
“In the Waikato, there’s certainly a lot of discreet wealth so you won’t find people driving down Victoria Street in a red Ferrari generally, most people are more conservative than that they don’t really like to show it, but we have some really wellestablished, families, businesses and the wealth that comes along with it. We certainly have some people with the capacity locally to purchase the top of our property market.”