Hotchins offered sale tips

Mark and Amanda Hotchin. Photo / Supplied

"The record breaker" and "add meat to the bones" - contrasting pitches suggested by prominent real estate agents keen to sell Mark and Amanda Hotchin's half-built mansion on Paritai Drive.

Bayleys agent David Rainbow said he would prefer to market the house as-is and let the new owners finish construction to their taste.

"The bones are there, you put a bit of meat on it," he said. "I'm sure Hotchin has good taste, and the builders have good taste - but whether it's the buyers, who knows?"

Celebrity real estate agent Michael Boulgaris said the scale and location of the finished property - likely to be a "record-breaker" in terms of sale price.

Boulgaris guessed the house could sell for up to $40 million, but said he would try to downplay appeal to the nouveau riche by going with the slogan: "It's stylish, it's not in your face, it's quite timeless."

The house has been on the market fewer than 48 hours, but agents are already excited by the prospect of a massive commission.

The Hotchins' spokesman Klaus Sorensen said no one had been appointed to sell the property, but he had already been approached by agents and "several high net worth individuals" looking to buy.

"The phrase to apply would be 'feeding frenzy'. I can see the fins in the water already."

The seven-bedroom mansion has been a lightning-rod for criticism of Hotchin after Hanover Finance, the company he co-owned with Eric Watson, was frozen in 2008 owing $554m to 16,000 investors.

Sorensen said his clients would sell once construction ends later this year.

"It's no longer appropriate for Mark and Amanda to occupy the house. People can draw their own conclusions why they're selling, but most of them are fairly obvious."

The property features included a games room, car wash, two swimming pools and a tennis court.

Boulgaris thought it unlikely a local could afford to spend so much on a home: "I imagine it'll be a Chinese buyer."

Rainbow agreed: "Most of the expensive houses in New Zealand are sold to Asians."

While agents jostle for the lucrative payday, Allied Farmers - the company that absorbed Hanover's assets - is to pay $5m this week to a company controlled by Hotchin and Watson. The payment was to cover costs of winding up Hanover, and Allied Farmers was legally obligated to pay.