The house was built in the 1900s and is described as a "spacious elevated villa" with four bedrooms and one bathroom on a 607m2 level site.
The listing even boasted that the property had its walls, ceiling and floors intact.
For that price, that's the least I'd be expecting!
A large shed also sits at the back of the property which Elgar suggested could potentially be transformed into a home office or sleep-out.
A good thing too, as I imagine that's where the owner will be sleeping while their decrepit million-dollar home is brought up to liveable standard.
So back to my original question: How could anyone ever think spending more than $1m on a rickety old villa is rational?
My guess is that Auckland buyers have become so desensitised to the city's ridiculous house prices that "good finds" like this seem perfectly reasonable.
But to someone like me, who lives outside Auckland and bought her first home earlier this year for mid-300k, it's daylight robbery.
While Rotorua's housing price explosion shocked many long-time locals who were accustomed to years of property stagnation, comparative to many of the country's big centres, you can still buy a home here relatively cheaply.
The same goes for places such as Hawke's Bay and Taranaki, where, according to the latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand figures, the median property price is $445,000 and $341,000 respectively.
While I appreciate rising prices in the regions have made buying a home unattainable for some, I think we locals also need to have a bit of perspective - at least we're not fighting over who gets to spend a million bucks to live in a decaying, dilapidated abode.
