Plenty of land up for grabs
There is plenty of land up for grabs in Southland, but its locations may not be where people want to live or can afford.
In figures released by homes.co.nz. the Southland District Council area has 1979 properties classified as ‘‘residential vacant’’ sections – land ready to be built on, but in need of the necessary consents, chief data scientist Tom Lintern said.
Te Anau has 363, Riverton 211, Lumsden 91, Ohai 89 and Halfmoon Bay 84.
The Gore District Council area has 390 and Invercargill City Council area 988.
The figures also provided a snapshot of properties in the Southland district exceeding 1000m2, of which there are 3865 of these across the region. Winton has 380, Riverton, 368, Te Anau, 306, Wallacetown, 230 and Lumsden, 195. ‘‘There could be incentives to promoting subdividing and downsizing for these homeowners . . . it’s an opportunity for a retired person, who might not want to move off their property but can fund their retirement,’’ Lintern said.
Southland Housing Action Forum chairman Shaun Drylie, who was part of recent government delegation to Housing Minister Phil Twyford to stress the need for 2800 houses in Southland in 2019, said the high availability of land had provided ‘‘food for thought’’. ‘‘We’re in this position where we’ve got all this land, and now the challenge is, what do we do with it.
‘‘Southland has not had these challenges in the past, therefore it’s created incentives because of the market demand.’’
Southland’s most desirable areas to live are Invercargill, Stewart Island, Riverton and Te Anau.
Venture Southland’s business and strategic projects general manager Steve Canny said sections were available in Southland, but they were not always in the areas that people wanted or could afford to live.
‘‘The issue is that they may not be suitable, for instance for social and emergency housing, and the sections may be way above the average [price] for the first time buyer.’’
He was not in favour of subdivisions being incentivised because it skewed or distorted the market, but was in favour of the pathway option.
Acknowledging that there was a lack of suitable consented residential property available for new builds and a lack of local builders and tradespeople, new ways had to be found to get around the housing issue, he said.
One of the options was good quality pre-fabricated and portable buildings that were constructed off-site.
‘‘I think it [2800 houses in 2019] is achievable but the solution needs a fresh approach.’’
‘‘. . . it’s created incentives because of the market demand.’’
Shaun Drylie
Real estate experts believe the Central Otago-Queenstown district might be the first area of the country to feel the effects of new rules on overseas house buyers.
According to property website realestate.co.nz, average asking prices average in the region during November fell to $857,011, down 18.9 per cent on the previous month.
New listings also fell by 4.6 per cent compared to October, when sellers were asking the much higher price of $1,057,019.
October also saw the introduction of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, which classifies residential land as ‘‘sensitive,’’ meaning existing homes can only be bought by New Zealanders, Australians, Singaporeans or residence-class visa holders.
Queenstown has a high number of overseas home owners and earlier this year it overtook Auckland as the region with the highest asking prices.
‘‘It could be that in the run up to the new legislation, there was an influx of top end properties that owners were eager to get across the sold line,’’ spokeswoman Vanessa Taylor said.
‘‘Or they were testing the market and would have been open to a sale at the right price.’’
Now that the foreign ownership window had largely been closed, vendors may well have either sold the houses or taken them off the market, Taylor said.
‘‘Time will tell what it means for the Central Otago-Lakes District.’’
Auckland’s prices remained largely where they had all year, skirting the $1 million dollar mark at $949,345, 1.6 per cent lower than the previous month.
New listings were also down, by 17.2 per cent compared to a year ago.
However, it was impacted by a massive 20 per cent in new listings in October on
‘‘It could be that in the run up to the new legislation, there was an influx of top end properties that owners were eager to get across the sold line.’’
Vanessa Taylor
the previous year, as people tried to get their houses on the market early. Auckland listings overall were up 5 per cent.
Nationally, the average asking price in November continued to remain stable, standing at $653,575, 3.3 per cent lower than the previous month.
There were also a lot of people looking, with realestate.co.nz’s website receiving its highest level of visits since March last year.
Taylor said the interest overall did not seem to be driven by the foreign buyer ban or the Reserve Bank decision last week to loosen up the bank lending criteria for borrowers with low deposits.
About 65 per cent of traffic during November was from users within the country, and overseas visitors to the site were predominantly from Australia (18.6 per cent), and the US (9.6 per cent).
Regions which hit record asking prices in October – Hawke’s Bay, Marlborough and Manawatu/Wanganui – came back to earth with price falls in November ranging from 7 to 3 per cent.
But three regions hit new highs. Southland rose 6.9 per cent to $321,216, the Bay of Plenty jumped 6.6 per cent to $680,754, and Nelson & Bays rose 1.5 per cent to $651,686.
Popular Wellington’s average asking price rose 1.1 per cent to $640,634, while the Canterbury region fell by 1.1 per cent to $492,897.