Huntly ‘pillaged’; property prices soar
Two-thirds of people buying houses in Huntly come from outside the town according to local real estate professionals.
Despite predictions the Covid year made no difference to sales, it is quite the opposite. With more time at home to surf the real estate sites, Huntly has been pillaged for property with two key firms scraping the bottom of the barrel for listings.
Huntly Harcourts Riverlands Real Estate managing director Dallas Hodge said the market had not shown any signs of slowing since the first Covid lockdown in March 2020.
‘‘While lockdown meant people were not moving, we still fielded strong enquiry and this has not diminished. Our figures to December 2020 show 29 per cent of our sales to purchasers from Auckland, 23 per cent to purchasers from Hamilton and the remainder local. This is up 24 per cent from Auckland in the 2019 year and 20 per cent Hamilton for the same period.
‘‘Stock is still extremely tight.
Anything we list is getting immediate attention, often resulting in multiple offers presented to our vendors for consideration. The current median for Huntly is $439,000, up
24 per cent from 1 year ago when it was $355,000. Ngaruawahia’s current median is $639,000, up 22 per cent from the prior year at
$523,000. Te Kauwhata is the anomaly with its current median
$508,000, down 15 per cent from the prior year of $600,000.’’
Hodge said the rental market was also experiencing high demand with shortages across the three north Waikato townships. ‘‘With the legislative changes to the Residential Tenancies Act and the looming healthy homes deadlines, some investors are listing their properties which are in turn being sold to people who are moving into them, so we are losing some of our traditional rental stock. This is creating a shortage of homes available to those who wish or need to rent.’’ Ian Pepper and Barbara Craig, agents and co-owners at Huntly Century 21, are run off their feet with enquiries and stitching deals together. ‘‘We have had two of us putting three deals together at the same time,’’ Craig said.
House prices have soared. Seven years ago the average three-bedroom home on Huntly’s west side went for an average of
$167,000. Today the same sort of dwelling is topping $400,000.
‘‘People have realised Huntly is central and everything on both sides of us – in Auckland or Hamilton – is expensive,’’ Craig says. ‘‘Huntly tops out at about
$700,000 in residential; above that you’re looking at lifestyle blocks. We can sell sections that can be subdivided for the equivalent of a section half the size in a cheaper Hamilton suburb. We get a lot of people from Auckland looking for places and it’s a challenge to find stock. We get multiple offers on everything available. I can list a two-bed property in a good area and in 24 hours have 10 to 15 enquiries and people want to view straight away.’’
The district is still waiting on progress in the giant Sleepyhead development slated for Ohinewai, and local builders Built Smart is busy building 143 houses for its own subdivision, Pepper said. Meanwhile, Waikato District Council Huntly Ward councillor
Shelley Lynch is a woman with a mission – to get the old Huntly railway station back close to its original site next to the main trunk line and the heart of the north Waikato town.
The first Huntly railway station opened in August 1877. But as the coal mining industry grew, the station became inadequate and a new building opened in
1939. In 2008 the building was moved as part of plans to shift the Waikato Coalfield Museum to Lake Puketirini – the former Weavers open cast coal mine.
Lynch said the former station was owned by the Huntly Coalfields Museum Society. The group’s collections had been relocated to premises in the main street.
‘‘We’re hoping to get some funding from the council and some from the museum society –
50/50 – and we’re taking quotes for the moving of the building and hope to have it in its new place near the Te Huia platform by Christmas 2021 and then get to work to bring it up to standard as a museum exhibition space,’’ she said.