Speedy judgments in real estate
Time flies when you’re having fun… or when you’re a real estate agent working out how far a house is from a city centre.
It’s common for real estate advertising to feature an estimate of how far a property is from the nearest shopping centre, or the closest CBD. But in some cases, those travel times seem a little optimistic.
A survey of real estate advertising around the country found agents’ time estimates were frequently different from reality, sometimes by up to half an hour.
In one cases, a property advertised for sale at One Tree Point, near Whangarei, was billed as being 90 minutes from Auckland. The journey from central Auckland is 141km so you would have to be travelling 100kmh almost all the way there to achieve that time. At midday during the week, the drive took two hours.
Another property, in a new development in Karaka, was promoted as 30 minutes from Auckland’s CBD. Even off-peak, that journey took 40 minutes. Sometimes it can take more than an hour.
In the capital, a property in Waiwhetu was billed as being 20 minutes’ drive to Wellington but was more like a half-hour drive in traffic. A property on Silverstream Rd in Crofton Downs was advertised as five minutes to the CBD but could in reality take three times that, even off-peak.
In Christchurch someone expecting to travel to an Ilam property 10 minutes from the CBD could expect to spend at least another third of that time again in the car.
‘‘As with anything to do with purchasing a property, it is imperative that buyers undertake their due diligence, and for those individuals where commuting is an important part of purchasing the property this could include driving times,’’ Bindi Norwell, chief executive at the Real Estate Institute, said.
‘‘The REINZ code of agency practice says that all advertising should ensure it is a fair representation of all relevant facts, additionally, agents are not allowed to say anything that is misleading. Provided that agents can justify their statement as being accurate, then there is no issue with using ‘xx distance from the CBD’ or similar wording.
‘‘Proximity to the CBD is becoming an increasingly important factor in purchasing decisions as people are sick of sitting in traffic and also as the fuel tax is starting to hit people’s wallets.’’
Going a little further out from the city centre does reduce the price you pay. In Wellington, the Lower Hutt average asking price was $535,750 compared to $708,500 in central Wellington.
The Real Estate Authority said there was no rule that would deal with this explicitly, but agents had an obligation not to mislead or provide false information.
Alistair Helm, former head of product at Trade Me Property and now a salesperson for Bayleys, said buyers would be unlikely to take a salesperson’s word for the travel time without researching the area themselves.
‘‘They would have their own judgement on how convenient it is.’’
But a wildly inaccurate claim, or a failure to clarify that the calculation was done off-peak, could be misleading.