Two weeks ago, a large-scale development company settled on the purchase of a plot of land in Avondale, and within 24 hours had sold 13 out of 15 new townhouses planned for the site.
The last two townhouses sold a day later.
The $3.15 million sale of two neighbouring properties on a combined 1222sqm plot on Wingate Street in Avondale was brokered by Harcourts agents Aman Gulia and Joe Steel six weeks ago. In the time that contract took to settle, the buyer, developer Williams Corporation, designed 15 townhouses and had them ready to sell off-the-plans on the day the land sale went through.
“I haven’t seen another like it, reselling this fast, ever,” Gulia said.
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Ollie Matthews, the Williams Corporation client consultant who did the deal, told OneRoof that the purchase had been made during Auckland’s level 4 lockdown, going unconditional three weeks after Auckland went to level 3 to allow time to get engineers to the site.
13 of the 15 townhouses sold within a day of being launched at prices between $915,000 and $940,000. Photo / Supplied
The company has a timeline from land deal to selling the homes off-the-plan designed for efficiency.
Matthews said: “We get the engineers to the site to do their physical checks. Every development is different, but before we put in a contract we have our team of in-house designers, architects and planners figure what we can do, with variations on about six floor plans.
“We build so many that we can bulk order the right stuff, in the right quantities. It takes us about five to six months to build, it’s very fast, even other contractors are surprised, and we can do it for a fixed price.”
Blair Chappell, Williams Corporation managing director, told OneRoof that the company had sold around $120m of property in Christchurch, Auckland and Lower Hutt in the past three months, and currently has another 92 homes under contract.
“We are now averaging over 40 sales a month and are on track to complete 850 homes this financial year. Eighty six per cent of the homes we have released to market are already sold.
The developer, Williams Corporation, has a team of in-house architects, designers and planners to turn around new projects in weeks. Photo / Supplied
“We have 1114 homes on our books either in planning/consenting or construction. Roughly 50% are already under construction and 50% are in consenting, with 120 yet to be released to market.”
Matthews said that, as for most projects, consenting the Wingate Road townhouses through council would take about seven months, and the homes would be ready for occupancy in 12-14 months.
The two-bedroom terraces – some with two bathrooms, some with one, none with parking – sold for between $915,000 and $940,000 to a mix of first-home buyers and investors.
“Investor demand has certainly picked up in the last 12 months with changes to the tax regulations, but also because they realise prices are going up, but 60% of our buyers are first-home buyers,” Matthews said.
Gulia told OneRoof that the agents had approached neighbours when the owner of one of the pair of Wingate Street properties wanted to sell down his portfolio. The pair of 1990s three-bedroom homes had a combined council ratings valuation of $1.61m, with one of the properties changing hands five years ago for just $861,000.
He added that while his and Steel’s database of developers included many searching for suburban land with values of around $2m, there were others sniffing for bigger deals.
Other developers bought this 1353sqm site on Gavin Street in Ellerslie for $3.4m. Photo / Supplied
“I’ve got people wanting to spend up to $250m on land, all they want is big land to subdivide, probably with future urban zoning. There are big Chinese firms willing to spend $1 billion in New Zealand, looking to spend say $200 per square metre for 200 hectares around Drury and the city fringe.”
The pair also closed a deal on a 1353sqm site with a 1940s house on it on Gavin Street in Ellerslie for $3.4m – after multiple offers in the first week – more than double its rating valuation of $1.68m. A quartet of properties on Savoy Road, Glen Eden, sold for $6.3755m, more than double their ratings valuation.
