400 people turn up to open homes
A house seller has called Lower Hutt’s housing market ridiculous after 400 hopeful buyers turned up to inspect his 1950s weatherboard home.
An hour before lastmonth’s first open home at the Witako St property, Rory Sheehan says people were already lingering outside. ‘‘ At 4 o’clock, people were pulling up and staring up the driveway. A couple of guys came up and started talking to me about the house – I had to tell them it hadn’t started.’’
His wife, Joella, said the volume of buyers caused a traffic jam outside their house, with one cheeky punter trying to park in the driveway.
Listing agent Anne Harris said she had never seen so many people turn up for viewings – more than 400 people attended the three open homes, with about 60 groups going through each day. ‘‘Pre-Covid, it might have been six to 12 groups, and after, it has been up to 40 [groups]. It’s crazy.’’
Having been searching for a new house on and off for the last 18months, Rory Sheehan said he knew there was a lack of stock but did not expect there to be so much interest in their four-bedroom, 202-square metre house. ‘‘It’s all pretty tidy but it’s definitely not a prestige house. It’s just ridiculous,’’ he said.
The 511sqm property has an RV of $870,000. Eighteen offers were made and the house eventually sold for $1.315 million.
The Lower Hutt property market has skyrocketed in the last few years with the latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand figures showing median prices having jumped from $565,000 in October 2019 to a record $761,000 in the same month this year.
Until recently, Lower Hutt has been popular among housing refugees priced out of Wellington. Once seen as a cheaper alternative to the capital, prices have now got to the point where Quotable Value area manager Paul McCorry this week speculated whether the city might have run its course as an affordable market.
Harris said of the 32 property sales her team made last month, 16 were in excess of $1m.