Who will buy Ockham’s $1 million Auckland studio apartments?

Friday, 12 January 2024

The $1.05m studio aims to make up in style what it may lack in space.

Auckland is known for its high property prices, but is the $1,050,000 asking price for a 46 square metre one-room studio apartment in Ponsonby going to wash with buyers?

Developer Ockham, which is known for its stylish apartment buildings, has included 15 studio apartments in its Greenhouse development in Auckland, including two studio apartments on the sixth and seventh floors priced at $1.02m and $1.05m respectively.

So far five studios have sold in Greenhouse, which is distinctive for its green-glazed brickwork, for less than $1m.

Two other 46sqm studios remain on sale for $920,000 and $940,000, as do six 43sqm studios with asking prices of $850,000 to $900,000, with the higher price-tags on studios on higher floors with better views.

Ockham sales lead Joss Lewis said $1m studio apartments were rare, but the Greenhouse studios that have sold so far had been bought by a variety of people.

The floor plan for Ockham’s $1.05m Ponsonby studio apartment, which also includes a six square metre balcony.

“There are people who have got a home somewhere else, and this is going to be their little Auckland base,” she said. “This is a second home. They want something right in the heart of the action from which they can walk.”

She said there were also single people who were buying a first home, and then there were “more mature people” downsizing from a larger home.

“We have also got a number of investors,”

They were looking at them as long-term rentals, or as short-term rentals to the likes of executives coming from overseas to work for a defined period of time, she said.

The finishing touches go on Ockham’s Ponsonby property.

“I think there has been a bit of negative sentiment towards studios, and think that probably goes back to the era of ‘shoe-boxes’ in the city that were pretty average and were probably designed for students.”

But quality studios were common in some overseas cities like London, she said.

Location is one of Greenhouse’s appeals.

“They are actually quite roomy and well-designed. The living space is really generous, it’s almost more generous than the one and two-bedroom apartments in a way because it’s all open. You have a really nice feeling of space.”

There is also some shared space in the building for all apartment owners to use, including a private dining room for dinner parties, and a shared residents’ lounge.

Other studios on the market in Auckland currently range in price from $169,000 for tiny box-shaped single-room apartments in old high-rises, to a 57sqm “luxury” studio with car park in the waterfront Viaduct area with an asking price of $769,000.

Fletcher Building sales agent Kaaren Wilson said studio apartments were not taking off in Christchurch.

“We don’t actually do them. The smallest we’d go is a 50sqm one-bedroom apartment,” she said.

Wilson has a $529,000 asking price on a one-bedroom apartment in a new development on Cashel Street.

Real estate agent and property manager Sapphire Goldfinch from Comprendé in Wellington is marketing a studio in the capital on Taranaki Street in Te Aro for a client, but it comes as a package with a two-bedroom apartment, with a total asking price of $895,000.

“I’ve never seen a million-dollar studio,” she said.

Opes Partners property economist Ed McKnight said that over the last two years apartment prices in Auckland City had fallen 13.8%.

But Ockham had been holding its asking prices at Greenhouse steady, he said. A 43sqm studio on the seventh floor in Greenhouse across the hall from the $1.05m studio sold late last year, after having been on the market for more than a year and a half.

“It seems like they are willing to wait the market out to get a premium price.”