A pair of properties in one of Auckland’s biggest state housing neighbourhoods sold last week for $4 million, a record price for the suburb in recent times.
The properties on Eastview Road, Glen Innes, sat on a valuable 1729sqm of land zoned for terrace houses and apartments. One 920sqm site had a single new-build house on it, while the smaller site had the original 1960s three-bedroom home.
Ray White agent Steven Liang, who brokered the deal, said that the properties were owned by a private developer who had paid around $900,000 for the first site in 2016 after land was released by the Crown.
“The rule was you had to build in a certain time, so he put on a brand-new three-bedroom house in January – the build would have cost him $800,000. He’d bought the next-door property in June 2021 for $2.3m and was going to develop the pair.”
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Liang said that the recent change in developer sentiment had worked in his vendor’s favour after earlier attempts to sell the plots in February and again in June had received no offers.
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“We put it on the market in mid-August and had six offers. It sold in seven days, we didn’t get to auction. $4m is a suburb record for this year, we didn’t get remotely anything like this this year or last year,” he said.
“This would be 2021 prices,” he said, although the vendor would have made no profit on his holding. OneRoof records show the pair of sites has a combined CV of $5.45m and is zoned for the highest density for terrace houses and apartments.
Liang said that developers and investors were returning to the suburb to buy larger sections, figuring that the market has bottomed out before the election.
However, sellers, many of whom bought at the peak of the market frenzy in 2021, are not getting their money back, and many are even losing money, he said.
While the developments by Tamaki Regeneration are continuing apace – the organisation promises 10,500 new houses in the area that includes Panmure and Point England – private developers are still in the mix.
After initially selling land blocks to private developers, the organisation is now focused on their own building. Their plans are for a mix of public houses, affordable rentals and shared home ownership that provides a stepping stone for whanau to own their own places, and are then using large-scale infrastructure projects such as storm, waste and fresh water, transport and civil works and town centre development to attract private developers.
One of the properties on Eastview Road already has a new house on the 1729sqm site, which is zoned for terrace houses and apartments. Photo / Supplied
A property at Castledine Crescent, Glen Innes, that sold in 2020 for $1.2m is expected to fetch $1.7m with consents already in place. Photo / Supplied
A spokesperson told OneRoof that approximately 50% of the homes in the regeneration area are privately owned.
“Private developers prefer land in GI, closer to St Heliers and Glendowie because that’s where home buyers want to be,” Liang said, adding that about half the developers interested in sites are new to the area, as they find that they can now pick up more central sites for the same money they were paying a couple of years ago in cheaper southern suburbs.
“They see the prices drop, so for the same money they paid in 2021 they can get closer to town, closer to good suburbs with good schools.”
Liang is also selling properties where developers are quitting projects before they start building. Out of Glen Innes, he sold a trio of homes on Sullivan Avenue, Mangere Bridge, on a combined site of 2496sqm zoned for suburban density for less than the buyer had paid at the peak of the market.
The properties passed in at $3.65m and sold for an undisclosed price immediately after. Records show the vendor had paid $4.65m for the three properties in April 2021.
“There were eight bidders, they knew the owner’s motivation. It had resources consent and EPA approval for 20 two-bedroom houses. [Sales like this] are quite common these days because owners are selling for a good reason, they’re not testing the market.
“About half the buyers are looking for a shovel-ready project, they’ll just go in and start building, while the others are buying to hold while their other projects settle.
The Castledine Crescent section had plans for seven townhouses to replace the existing one home. Photo / Supplied
The neighbourhood of Glen Innes, Panmure and Point England will see 10,500 new homes built over 20 years by public organisation Tamaki Regeneration. Photo / Supplied
“They’ll take a year to 18 months to build and have a good end market, it will pick up so by the time they’ve built they’re selling in a higher market,” he said, adding that he had properties across Greenlane, Ellerslie, St Heliers and Wai O Taki Bay that were now affordable for developers picking up bargains.
Ray White salesperson Nadine Wilson said that while it was early days to call a pick up in the development market in Glen Innes, there were definitely buyers coming back.
“They are quite selective, looking for bargains. They all have different criteria, but unlike 2021, they’re after the traditional things – a flat traditional site, waste and storm water.
“You can see sites sitting vacant with nothing happening, but then might see a few moving. Definitely there are some developers out there for places marketed with building consents and EPA,” she said.
At the end of last week, Barfoot & Thompson agents Leah Lin and Rocky Liu made a deal for a 832sqm site on Castledine Crescent, Glen Innes, that with resource and building consents for seven town houses was marketed as immediately ready to go.
Lin told OneRoof the property, which sold in February 2020 for $1.2m, would likely fetch $1.7m plus GST, but said the gain was an exception in this market.
“Three years ago the price wasn’t that cheap, but then the neighbourhood got a new stormwater connection, so that made it more valuable. It’s not just inflation,” she said, supporting the strategy laid out by Tamaki Regeneration. She added that at the moment there were more developers looking than land available.
Barfoot & Thompson agent Peter Wu said that interest was already high for a property he is marketing on 109A Pilkington Road in nearby Panmure. The owner had bought the double site at 109 Pilkington nine years ago and subdivided, but had not been able to go ahead with plans to build a spec house to resell.
“We’ve had nine or 10 enquiries in a week, mostly from builders who would do a spec duplex, maybe four or five bedrooms. At the moment, you could sell a standalone house for $1.2m or a duplex for $1.1m. More people are thinking it is a good time to build, as in a year the prices will come back.”
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