Couple pay $9m for Remuera mansion

The Herberts' Remuera Rd property features multiple indoor and outdoor entertaining areas. Photo / APN

An Auckland glamour couple has paid $9 million for one of the city's flashest mansions, official property records show.

Socialites Simon and Paula Herbert recently paid one of the country's biggest prices for the Remuera estate, once owned by Rich Lister and ex-Fay Richwhite banker boss David Richwhite.

QV records show the Herberts settled the deal a few weeks ago and Mr Herbert said they loved living there.

QV also showed the house and land currently valued at $10,180,000, but in 2008 it had a valuation of $13.73 million.

The Remuera Rd house was most recently owned by Auckland businessman John Sanders who bought it more than a decade ago from Mr Richwhite for $8.5 million.

Two years ago, it had an Auckland City Council CV of $11.7 million butMr Sanders was asking well above that.

Mr Sanders has been involved in a bitter divorce dispute with his former wife Yvonne and the house was part of that, according to the National Business Review.

The NBR reported in July last year that the terms of a mediated matrimonial arrangement would have given Mrs Sanders $7.5 million from the house and Mr Sanders the rest.

But Mr Sanders - who had hoped to sell the house to Russian buyers for a reported $26 million - wants the matrimonial agreement set aside on the basis the property market had collapsed and the mansion had not sold for what the couple thought it would.

The case is due to be heard this year.

The property market is lacklustre. Barfoot & Thompson says it entered the New Year with 5865 unsold properties on its books, 8 per cent above December 2009.

Barfoot's November average sale price of $553,743 fell to $529,682 last month when the agency got just 737 new listings, well down on November's influx of 1639 properties.

The QV price indices for last month showed house prices continued a gradual decline, 0.9 per cent below the same time last year and 5.8 per cent below the market peak of late 2007.

But wealthy investors can still afford the best places and Mr Herbert confirmed yesterday the couple had shifted into the Remuera Rd house, a sprawling, gracious 1920s brick home at the top of a vast 8000sq m section landscaped like an English country garden.

Mr Herbert said he was banned from talking because the deal was subject to a confidentiality agreement. "We are delighted - it's a beautiful property," he said.

Mr Herbert is a property investor involved in the Bayswater Marina project and a range of other real estate deals. Mrs Herbert was crowned Mrs New Zealand 2009, representing the country in Vietnam.

The Remuera Rd house has a tennis court, swimming pool, multiple indoor and outdoor entertaining areas, a modern kitchen, gym room, nanny's quarters above a triple garage, library, study and expansive views of the Waitemata and Mt Victoria in Devonport.

Parties can be held in the pool and tennis court areas simultaneously because both have gazebos with bathrooms and mini-kitchens.