Greg Mundy and Veronika Nenkova wouldn’t be deterred by the unfashionable stucco plaster disguising the true character of the home at 7 Wherstead Rd, Cashmere.
Nor were they fazed by the consternation of rival bidders once they won the auction for the four-bedroom villa near the foot of the Port Hills.
“Everyone was saying: ‘You’re mad, you’ve spent far too much, there’s no way you’ll make money on that’. Most of the people were wanting to buy it just for the land so they could knock it down and build,” Mundy said.
They had paid $460,000 at auction in June 2020, so the purchase and extensive renovation undeniably paid off.
When they put the rejuvenated property on the market, Mundy had hoped it would fetch $1.2m so he was pleasantly surprised by a bidding war, indicating the weatherboard character look was still desirable.
“We got lucky with Wherstead because the market worked in our favour,” said Mundy, who aims to make a $100,000 profit per project.
“We put a load of money into it, but it wasn’t a million dollars, that’s for sure. We did well out of it, there’s no doubting that.”
They stripped Wherstead Rd back to the frame and added an extension in keeping with the original design.
“When people add extensions over the years, houses can lose their original character, shape and charm – we wanted to take it back,” he said.
They also surprised the previous owner and their engineer by removing double-glazed PVC windows and replacing them with single glaze glass and secondhand timber framing.
“They couldn’t believe it but we wanted (the windows) to match the age of the house.”
Real estate agent Rebecca Toone from Ray White Metro cited Wherstead Rd as a prime example of the enduring demand for homes of a bygone era, in a city taking a new shape after the earthquakes.
Toone estimated 60 to 70 per cent of her sales were homes built between 1900 and 1930 – villas and bungalows that have been painstakingly restored to their former glory, complete with mod cons.
“There’s definitely a market. Because I’m central city based I’ve done a lot of character homes, we get a lot of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s buying beautifully renovated villas,” she said.
Invariably the homes were earthquake damaged, though not beyond repair.
“Some held very steadfast because they’re timber. A lot of the damage was chimneys going through a tiled roof. It was often less about the house and more about the location and what the land type was under these villas,” she said.
“For us the big thing is location. Location sells the house more than the actual house sells a house.
While Nenkova, who designs the new interiors, has a soft spot for character homes, their current project is an earthquake-damaged ‘as is, where is’ four-bedroom home on Glenelg Spur, Hillsborough, built in 1960.
It was purchased for $480,000 in December and should take six months to resurrect.
However, they also maintain a connection to Wherstead Rd, where the house across the road from no.7 is undergoing a similar transformation.
“They saw how well our one went and decided they wanted to do the same thing but they had no idea about how to go about it so we’re project managing it,” Mundy said.
“They’re putting a big extension out the back and redoing the whole thing.”
