Rotorua homes are attracting strong interest from out-of-town buyers, including Aucklanders and Gisborne residents who are sick of being cut-off during the storms, agents have told OneRoof.
Ray White Rotorua co-owner Tim O’Sullivan said he had noticed an uptick in demand for lifestyle properties on the city’s fringes.
While people had previously considered Rotorua as a place to buy holiday homes, many were now considering relocating permanently, he said, with the price of Rotorua lifestyle properties ranging from $1.1 million to about $3m.
One of O’Sullivan’s listings, a lifestyle property at 53 Endean Road, in Ngongotaha Valley, had seen more viewings than any other property he had for sale at the moment. “The internet hits are nuts,” he said.
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Buyers for Australia, Gisborne, Taupo, as well as Rotorua locals had enquired about the property, which also operates as a glamping business and has a price indication of $2.7m-plus.
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O’Sullivan, who made headlines last month with his pet alpaca Boris accompanying him to open homes, said the property ticked a lot of boxes: it had a nice house, workshop, horse stables and arena, a stream running through it, and was also just a 15-minute drive from the CBD.
“We’ve had rain here for three weeks and it hasn’t put people off looking,” he said. “Some people have been looking for the right property for many years and it just hasn’t come up and this one is very appealing.”
Other lifestyle properties on the market in Rotorua include a near-new four-bedroom, three-bathroom lifestyle property with a self-contained unit at 42/361 Central Road, in nearby Hamurana, which has a price indication of $1.625m. The listing is with Professionals Rotorua principal Steve Lovegrove and he has clear instructions from his vendors to sell.
Ray White Rotorua co-owner Tim O'Sullivan with his pet alpaca Boris who accompanies him to open homes. Photo / Supplied
However, Lovegrove said there were challenges elsewhere in the Rotorua market.
The price gap between what Rotorua homeowners will accept and what buyers can pay was still hundreds of thousands of dollars apart, with property owners who refuse to drop their asking prices now pulling their houses off the market.
Lovegrove said there was still resistance from some sellers who were still expecting last year’s prices.
An owner might want $1.1m for their property, he said, but the buyers might only be prepared to pay $950,000 due to financing challenges.
“There’s buyers alright – but the vendors are very cautions of meeting the market because they might have established in their minds the value of the property, and they’ve formulated future plans on the basis if we sell for this, we can do this, this, this, this, and this.”
So instead of dropping the price to meet the market, they were pulling a property that may have been for sale for three to four months off the market and deciding to stay put.
Professionals Rotorua principal Steve Lovegrove said there's still a gap between how much vendors will sell for and what buyers will pay. Photo / Andrew Warner
Lovegrove's listing of this four-bedroom lifestyle property at 42/361 Central Road, Hamurana, Rotorua. is priced at $1.625m. Photo / Supplied
Lovegrove said "seller’s fatigue" and some sales were the main reasons the stock level in Rotorua had dropped 10% to 470 listings in the last month.
He was confident the sellers would eventually meet the market and when it did there would suddenly be a flurry of sales.
While stock numbers had dropped, Lovegrove said the number of buyers appeared to have increased. In the last two weeks his agency has seen, on average, 20% to 30% more buyers attending open homes across all types of properties.
A high-end residential home would now set someone back $1m-plus in Rotorua, while a residential home on a full section could be picked up around $400,000. A three-bedroom home at 184B Clayton Road, in Mangakakahi, has an asking price of $465,000 and is being marketed at first-home buyers.
Agents told OneRoof that previous concerns around the city’s image being tainted by an increase of people being housed in the city’s motels seemed to have subsided under the new council leadership and plans were underway to build more social housing.
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