Home removals are on the rise
Rules that allow higher-density housing in Auckland mean the available houses for removal stock is up 30-40 per cent, writes Gill South.
‘‘The process from buying a home in the salesyard to getting it to your site after council approval is usually between three and four months.’’ Craig Walker Kumeu-based home relocation expert
The way we break up older timber houses into a few big pieces, put them on a truck and take them to another site down the road, or to the other end of the country, is something people in other parts of the world find endlessly entertaining.
It’s not something you’d do with a brick semi-detached in London, for example.
These unwanted homes are often amazingly reasonable to buy, because the costs to remove them and re-site them is the expensive part, going into the early hundreds of thousands.
And the house for removal business is a busy one at the moment for a variety of reasons, including land costs, the cost of building a home and planning changes.
Kumeu-based home relocation expert, Craig Walker, says the Auckland Unitary Plan, which is encouraging higher density housing in parts of Auckland, is spurring developers or property owners to move existing homes off generous sites and build townhouses in their place.
‘‘It’s giving development a real shot in the arm,’’ says Walker. And, as a consequence, the founder of Craig Walker Building Removals would say the increase in available house for removal stock is up 30 or 40 per cent.
When he’s looking at taking a home for his salesyard, he looks for quality, character and authenticity, and a product that might fit in-fill housing for a suburban landowner. Across three yards, Walker has about 60 houses at the moment.
‘‘Buyers of these homes tend to be 90 per cent price-driven and 10 per cent character-driven, people wanting a 1920s bungalow, or turn-of-the-century villa,’’ Walker says.
And you’ll definitely save on price, he says. By the time you’ve moved the house to the site, people are paying between a half or two-thirds the cost of a new building, he estimates.
Meanwhile, it’s relatively quick. ‘‘The process from buying a home in the salesyard to getting it to your site after
council approval is usually between three and four months,’’ says Walker, whose company will help clients get council consent.
Graphic designer Hamish Douglas and his partner, art history teacher, Danya Hewetson, used Walker in the move of a turn-of-the-century two-storey villa from Ellerslie to Ambury Rd in Mangere Bridge six years ago.
They brought the derelict house to their 600 square metre site at 22 Ambury Rd overlooking Ambury Farm, joining other older villas in the area, including former Prime Minister David Lange’s home, Waterlea.
For the journey, the home was chopped into four pieces and craned onto trucks.
The couple sold the house on their Mangere Bridge site to Craig Walker Building Removals, which helped offset the cost of moving.
The relocation and getting it settled on site cost $200,000 and they’ve spent another $200,000 and change on renovating, says Douglas.
You’ll need to find money for insulation and, unless the wiring is new, you have to rewire, do the plumbing and drainage, but it’s still significantly cheaper than building a new home, says Douglas, who, with Hewetson, did another house removal in Mt Eden’s Paice Ave before this.
‘‘It’s the ultimate piece of recycling. It’s good for the environment, you wouldn’t typically be able to build a twostorey 220sqm home with native timber floors and high ceilings for half a million dollars,’’ Douglas says.
The home, overlooking Ambury Farm and Manukau Harbour, has four bedrooms and a study, beautiful wooden floors, and 3.5 metre ceilings on the ground floor.
The couple, who have two young boys, have just put the Ambury Rd property up for auction and the current CV is $1.39 million.
For Wairarapa heritage architect, Chessa Stevens and builder, Rob Tilbrook, who specialises in conservation properties, they have personally done two home relocations and are now eyeing their most ambitious project yet.
They have put an offer in on a two-storey former vicarage of St Matthew’s church in Masterton.
It’s a requirement that the building must stay in Wairarapa, as it’s one of the few surviving 19th-century buildings in the area. It was added onto, in the 1930s, and more recently.
‘‘We think it demands quite a generous setting,’’ says Stevens. ‘‘We are on the hunt for something that fits the bill.’’
It’s important to position the large home well on site, says the architect. With historic houses, the ideal is to keep the street frontage.
The Greytown-based couple are not doing this to save on the cost of a new home.
‘‘The reason I do this is because I’m a conservation architect interested in preserving our built heritage,’’ says Stevens.
The cost involved in building something of the same materials new would be extraordinary, she adds.
‘‘You couldn’t get that timber, you can’t obtain the materials, and this will give it another 100 years of life.’’
Meanwhile, to people who are new to the relocating home concept, the architect says it’s a good idea to buy from a house yard, because the house removal companies are very experienced and will take care of critical consenting work for you.