You could have called New Plymouth the best-kept secret in the North Island until Lonely Planet talked up the area back in 2016, says Clive Saleman, sales manager for the city’s First National Real Estate office.
The Taranaki region came second in the renowned travel guide’s list of the world’s top 10 regions, after Choquequirao in Peru. An article on LonelyPlanet.com describes the Taranaki region as overlooked and under-appreciated.
“It’s a region of rolling dairy farms, easy-going residents and sleepy side roads but look further and you’ll find black-sand beaches whipped by Tasman Sea surf and a provincial capital with a surprising world-class arts scene.”
The city of New Plymouth, on the west coast and north of Whanganui, has Mt Taranaki for a backdrop and also a rugged coastline.
Start your property search
Saleman says at the time of the Lonely Planet ranking a lot of locals expected a tourism boom.
“My thoughts were, not really, what we will get is the rest of the North Island and probably the rest of New Zealand actually sitting up and taking notice.”
People did and some moved there, he says.
“Also, another factor there – WOMAD (the international arts festival). The number of people who come here for WOMAD who look around and go home and sell and move here.
“Maybe it was considered a backwater, maybe it was considered to be wet and windy, but when people come here and try it out it’s nowhere near as bad as all that. In fact, I think last year we had one of the highest sunshine hours in New Zealand.”
Mount Taranaki dominates the region's landscape. Photo / Getty Images
Because New Plymouth is less off the beaten track than it used to be there’s a steady stream of buyers coming from Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga and Wellington for a range of reasons to settle in an area which has a lot of attractions, Saleman says.
“Fifteen minutes you can drive anywhere here, there’s beaches everywhere. There’s golf courses galore, there’s the mountain, and a ton of surf breaks, windsurfing, kiting.”
He says when the rest of the country dipped in prices this year, New Plymouth held up because of the out-of-town buyers but later in the year the market did slow a little because potential movers from those areas were finding it harder to sell their homes.
The median price in New Plymouth sits around $650,000 for a standard home, but out-of-towners gravitate more towards $1 million or more properties.
“They want the modern, low maintenance stuff, which is about $1m to $1.2mish. Those properties are very popular.”
While out-of-towners were coming before Covid, the pandemic has also brought more newcomers.
“A lot of people moving in bring jobs with them. They work from home or whatever. For example, we sold a house to a young couple who came here for WOMAD, went back to Dunedin, moved here – he writes children’s books. He can write them from anywhere, and people with online work, a lot of those sort of people have moved here.”
The local economy is not reliant on tourism which could be another reason why the town is still going strong, he says.
“It is reliant on dairy money and oil and gas money. We have a big community here of oil and gas people. If those industries wind down and suffer then it will drag Taranaki down.”
Staffing has wound down in the oil industry but Saleman says any impact on the housing market has so far been offset by people moving into the area.
