People are driving more than an hour to send their children to a sought-after public high school, with some parents liking what the small town has to offer so much that they are skipping the ballot system and moving to be in-zone.
Ngatea has evolved in the past decade from being a rural service town for the surrounding dairy farming community to an educational hub driven by the impressive reputation Hauraki Plains College has built for itself under the strong leadership of the recently-retired principal Ngaire Harris.
The town itself has a population of about 1600 and the local college and primary school combined have a roll of just under 1200 students. It’s also got Thames Valley’s only hockey turf, a large cricket pitch and a rugby club.
Bayleys agent Karl Davis, who specialises in country real estate, said students travel from as far as Waiuku and Pauanui to attend the college because of its good name.
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Some parents have even moved to the town – many from South Auckland – making the longer commute to work in Paeroa, Thames or Auckland so their kids don’t have to.
“The demographic has probably changed from being farmers retiring to town even though that still occurs to probably families shifting there for schooling,” he said.
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“A lot of people are still driving from there to Auckland to work – the parents are – but it’s probably trying to give their kids a more country style upbringing.”
And Davis said the house prices reflect the high quality of schooling with people having to pay more to live in Ngatea compared with other Waikato towns such as Paeroa and Kerepehi. Its house prices are more in line with the nearby and much larger Thames.
“Because of its school infrastructure and its location, it has achieved premium values in the greater area, and it seems to have held those values very well even in a softening market.”
Entry-level house prices in the older, more central part of Ngatea are in the high $500,000s like the three-bedroom, one-bathroom homestead at 188 Pipiroa Road which is on the market for $585,000.
Entry-level homes in Ngatea start from the mid-$500,000s. This lifestyle property at 188 Pipiroa Road has an asking price of $585,000. Photo / Supplied
However, the prices rise to just under $1 million for a newer family home in one of the newer subdivisions at either the southern or northern end of town.
Harris Place is considered the “Mayfair” of Ngatea because of the bigger homes on large 2000sqm sections in town.
“That’s where all the first million-dollar sales happened – down Harris Place and that’s a 20-year-old subdivision,” Davis said.
The record for the highest residential sale in Ngatea was broken in September last year when Richardsons Real Estate sold a property on a 1.69ha section on Stembridge Road for $1.42m.
Richardsons Real Estate Ngatea branch manager Rhys Carmichael said the town has grown exponentially and is expected to keep growing as more stages of the Hauraki District Council’s new subdivisions are completed.
“It has seen a huge growth of people coming into town, but also moving around town.” Some people had moved from the older, central Ngatea to homes in the new subdivisions.
A section in one of the new subdivisions at 4 McWatters Drive has an asking price of $375,000, while a house and land package for the neighbouring property at 2 McWatters Drive is asking $979,500. A modern four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in a slightly older subdivision at 39 Benner Drive is for sale for $915,000.
Modern homes in the newer subdivisions tend to be at the higher-end of the market like this property at 39 Benner Drive which is on the market for $945,000. Photo / Supplied
The Masonic Village is also developing more homes. It already has 40 existing villas available for people who are 65 years and over living independently at the northern end of the town and plans are underway for a further 57 freestanding homes at the southern end.
As well as its good schooling drawing people in, Carmichael said Ngatea has become a popular choice for some retirees who have been living on the Coromandel Peninsula and want to be closer to more services and family.
“The drawcard has been it’s on the flat, it’s close to lots of place, it’s on main thoroughfares as well but it’s also close to services,” he said.
“It’s very community friendly and I would deem it to be a very safe community. Everyone gets on really well and everyone is supportive of the people around them.”
Further growth in the town is also likely to prompt more shops to open or expand. The town currently has a Four Square, post office, gift shop, hardware store, pharmacy, pub, several cafes, two vets and – a sign it is still a farming centre – an RD1, Farmlands, a milking machine shop and two farm machinery shops.
The Ngatea Water Gardens and pick-your-own blueberries at Blueberry Country are also popular with visitors passing through on their way to and from Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula and Tauranga, especially with SH25A closed indefinitely due to storm damage.
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