Property price ‘scandal’ hits the sticks
Finally, it’s happened. We’ve caught up with the rest of the country, not that we minded being behind, to be honest.
For years we’ve marvelled as the price of an average house in an average street in Auckland has climbed over the $1 million mark.
We’ve lamented with Aucklanders as they’ve forgone their overpriced daily coffees and their smashed avocados to be able to afford to buy a doer-upper on a tiny section in suburbia, or a shoebox-sized apartment with a view of other apartments in the traffic-laden inner city.
We’ve watched as prices forced people to build houses further out of city centres, contributing to urban sprawl, so that they could spend an enjoyable four hours commuting to work every day so they can pay the mortgage.
We’ve sympathised with families who had to move to apparently ‘awful’ places like Hamilton and Tauranga just to get on the real estate ladder. But now, the inflated property prices have reached my neck of the woods.
The locals are used to the influx of rubber-neckers driving around the village in the summer months, peering through the windows at our idyllic rural lifestyle, watching as children ride their bikes down the street with gay abandon, remembering their easy, carefree childhoods.
Because it’s just like that in our town, of course. And they’ve started wanting a piece of it.
An old villa on a quarter acre, with established fruit trees and a massive deck, sold recently for less than the $250,000 the owner wanted for it, after sitting on the market for two years.
Another three bedroom home with a garage and sleepout on another quarter acre just sold for about the same price.
But the biggest scandal was advertised in the local rag last week - quarter acre sections with no services have been advertised for the princely sum of $45,000 each. You should hear the locals. The words ‘‘bloody ridiculous’’ have been muttered more than once in the pub, but their protests are falling largely on deaf ears.
It wasn’t that long ago that you couldn’t give a section away.
There are still plenty of faded ‘For Sale’ signs on fences in town, trying to flog off an overgrown, if not slightly swampy site the same horse has been grazing for as long as anyone can remember.
They’re slowly being snapped up by out-of-towners who are building cribs (or baches), and living the dream.
Now one farmer has just gone a step too far, offering up some elevated sunny sites as a subdivision to cash in on the boom. A subdivision, indeed. He’s even added the name ‘Heights’ on the end of it to make it sound posh.
There’ll be none of that carry on at my end of town, which we’ve decided to call ‘The Manor’ just because we can. We’re not ready to become a gated community yet - but with the influx of new people, it could be on the cards.
‘‘He's even added the name 'Heights' on the end of it to make it sound posh.’’