Owners get handy for added interest

Increasing numbers of home buyers are reaching for their toolbelts to turn "do-ups" into dream homes.

Rundown houses are being snapped up by buyers looking for a step up into a sought-after suburb, or to turn a profit when the market rebounds.

Real Estate agent John Wills from Custom Residential, based in Auckland's Grey Lynn, said interest in do-ups had soared "big time" in the past six to eight months. Buyers were mostly private owners looking to buy into a hot suburb, rather than investors, he said.

One property on the market now, a four-bedroom villa close to Grey Lynn Park, attracted 100 groups at its first open home. Wills said the house needed work, "but it's a bay villa and it's in Grey Lynn and it's facing the right way".

Eight properties in need of renovation had been sold in recent months, Wills said.

"This is not necessarily first-home buyer territory, so they'll buy a do-up and sit down with an architect and tick all the boxes they want. They can get the fourth bedroom or the walk-in wardrobe."

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Posted: 30 Aug 2009

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