That’s the day his two units — across a driveway from each other — both sold under the hammer in Harcourts Queenstown’s auction room.
In ’93 he’d bought Unit 203, a one-bedder at St James Apartments, off Coronation Dr, from then-Harcourts agent, the late Ken Greenslade.
He’d seen the unit on the cover of a Harcourts ‘Bluebook’.
Last Thursday, that sold for $750,000 plus GST, if any, to an Auckland party.
In 2014, the Singaporean had added No6 Penrich Court Apartments — a two-level three-bedder, opposite St James and fronting Horne Creek and Camp St.
He bought that, also through Harcourts, for $585,000.
Last Thursday it sold at auction for $1,606,000, plus GST, if any, to Australians who’d holidayed in this very apartment.
This was also the first Penrich Court sale since this same unit had been sold 10 years earlier.
Local Harcourts agent Megan Osborne says in just 27 days this apartment attracted 50-plus enquiries and 30-plus viewings, which had to fit around heavy holiday bookings.
At the auction — conducted, like the other one, by Harcourts agent Mitch Martin — there were eight registered bidders.
From an opening bid of $1million, 31 bids were lodged till Martin’s hammer went down.
"This property was run as a short-term let so it attracted higher out-of-town interest," Osborne says,
Penrich Court was particularly popular, she says, "having the ability to be taken out of management and be managed by the owner, and having a single garage in the heart of Queenstown, which is prime real estate in itself".
