- A South Auckland family sold their unfinished bungalow for $744,000 after more than 100 bids.
- The Moeakiola family faced financial struggles after losing $180,000 to a deceased project manager.
- The sale allows the family to visit a relative in Hawaii and renovate their Clendon home.
A South Auckland family carrying the pain of a disastrous renovation found some good luck this week when their four-bedroom bungalow attracted more than 100 bids at auction.
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The house on Dominion Road, in Papakura, sold under the hammer for $744,000 after 20 minutes of fierce bidding, mostly from two builders.
The sale closed a tough couple of years for the Moeakiola family. They had hit financial problems after they picked up the renovation started by their late father Malupe, who had died in 2023.
Most of the work on the property had been completed to a high standard. Photo / Supplied
The owners were unable to complete the outdoor living space. Photo / Supplied
The family had hired a project manager, but he died soon after taking their $180,000 deposit. They soldiered on with the upgrades, spending another $200,000 on top of the $180,000 they lost, but they ran out of funds before completing the project.
Ray White listing agent Bob Lemalu said the property had a CV of $1.175m, but the valuation was largely irrelevant. “We had decided on a declared reserve of $549,000. That was hard to get to; it was a roll of the dice, but the family was prepared to chance it to get people along. It has been a hard market,” he told OneRoof.
The strategy worked as bidding swept past $600,000 by the third bid before the last two bidders settled into their lengthy sparring match. The house, which still had the back part to finish, had been viewed by 18 groups – a good number given the stage of the renovation, said Lemalu.
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Family buyers dropped out after realising it was a job only for professional builders. Lemalu said the new owner had "only just made his mind up" to buy as the auction kicked off.
Jeoff Sale Moeakiola told OneRoof that his anxiety levels had been “through the roof during the auction. “We’re very happy it went the way it did because it could have gone either way. We were thinking it was only going to be a few bids, but then it started to go nuts.
“The declared reserve was to attract bidders, to show that anyone can bid for this house,” he said, adding that while the family had lost a lot of money of the project, they were still pleased with the sale price.
“It means Mum has some money to go visit her sister in Hawaii, who has Alzheimer's, and we can renovate the family home in Clendon for her,” he said.
The Moeakiolas estimate they spent $200,000 on the rebuild on top of the $180,000 deposit they lost. Photo / Supplied
Sale Moeakiola and Lemalu were happy to attribute their success to a higher power: the agents and family shared a prayer before the auction began. “We just put everything in God’s hands, and Mum was happy. She was listening to the auction in a side room. She had her eyes closed and her hands clasped; she was praying hard. When it was over, she gave me a look: ‘We did it, let’s go and have a cup of tea to celebrate.'"
He is philosophical that the price is nowhere near the $1.5m his father was offered before he died, saying his father would have been proud of their actions. Lemalu added: “Most definitely, it was a higher power that we all invested in. Dad was smiling down on them to help.”
Sale Moeakiola told OneRoof last month his father had been buying and renovating houses for many years and had picked up the bungalow on Dominion Road in 2005 as a rental. The family decided to go ahead with Malupe’s renovation, but work came unstuck after the builder died.
The family sought legal advice about getting the deposit back. “I tried to recover some of that money, but they said [the project manager’s firm] had gone into liquidation. There was no money. It is not like he put the money into a bank account. Everything was gone.”
Sale Moeakiola took on the job of project manager and got as far as giving the 1930s house a new kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and flooring. But the family’s funds ran out before they could finish the job of turning the former sleepout into an outdoor living space.
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