Author: Deborah Farmer

Staff from our city office are pictured attending the Gala Dinner at the PINZ National Property Conference 2021, from left: David Tang, Molika Touch, Alice Liu and John Darroch (Director).

Congratulations John Darroch, Director of North Harbour Valuers, seen here (on right) at the Property Council's Annual Auckland Property People Awards held on 27 October. We are proud to say that John won the JLL Property Professional Award. Well done John and thank you to Property Council NZ's Auckland Branch for recognising John's excellence in leadership and innovation in the Auckland property industry.

Many Aucklanders face a nervous wait in the next few weeks to find what the council thinks their houses are worth. Some will want the highest valuation they can get, particularly if they plan to sell up. Although many properties go for sums far exceeding their rating valuation or RV (also known as a council valuation or CV), a higher valuation will help sellers get the best price possible. It's a different story for people who have no plans to put their home on the market, whose concerns shift to how much their rates may go up under the system. Read more... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11933685

A target of 14,000 new Auckland houses built a year, banning foreign buyers from buying existing places and tackling the construction sector duopoly are ideas put forward to solve the city's housing crisis. Auckland Housing Summit organising committee chairwoman Leonie Freeman, said 130 people came up with solutions when the committee met last month. It has now issued its report. In a recommendation that follows Australia's foreign investment regime, the report mooted "investigating changes to foreign ownership rules so foreign investors can only buy new homes". In a section on housing delivery barriers, it cited "monopoly/duopoly on supply chain of materials", along with skilled labour, difficulties retaining skilled tradespeople, insufficient building scale and lack of private/public partnerships.  Read more... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11917155

The last two months have seen a significant slowdown in the property market, across the country. Yes, we are now experiencing the chill of winter, but this is more than just that. The first evidence comes from our measure of buyer demand. There was a surge in activity during late February and early March, which is normal for that time of year, and usually carries through until Easter. However, this year, the demand started to dive three weeks before Easter. With Easter and Anzac falling on consecutive weekends we expected activity to drop over those two weeks. And, indeed it did. But since then, demand hasn't rebounded as much as normal. Year-on-year demand is much lower in Auckland and across the rest of the country is more or less flat.…

Mt Roskill, Papakura, New Lynn and Glen Innes will be the biggest beneficiaries of a major Government-run building programme announced this week. These suburbs are set to get hundreds of new houses, many sold at affordable rates, by 2020. And in an apparent first, non-resident buyers will be blocked from buying properties in some of the affordably-priced developments. Meanwhile, South Auckland suburbs will see a lift in state houses, with plans to build more than 200 more Housing New Zealand properties in Mangere and Manurewa. Figures provided to the Herald show the Government plans to complete construction of 9000 houses in the first three years of its 10-year programme. Of that total, 4600 will be sold on the open market. It was initially thought that 20 per cent of them…

The Government is promising to build 34,000 homes in Auckland over 10 years. Of that, 13,500 will be social housing and 20,600 will be sold on the open market, some priced at "affordable" levels. Social Housing Minister Amy Adams revealed the plans in a pre-Budget announcement in Auckland today. Adams said 8300 rundown houses on Crown land would be replaced with 34,000 new homes. Some of these houses were part of already-announced building projects in Tamaki and Hobsonville. The houses would be for New Zealand's most vulnerable families, first-home buyers, and for the wider market. They would be built in areas like Northcote, Hobsonville and in Tamaki. Housing New Zealand would be responsible for building 24,300 of them.  Read more... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11857003

Nothing quite underlines the Government's on-going failure to solve Auckland's housing crisis as the latest Auckland Council figures admitting that only 7200 new houses were completed in 2016. This is only half the 14,000 needed just to cope with annual population growth, let alone reduce the estimated 35,000 shortfall build up over recent years. This is also well short of the 9500 new houses a year, Housing Minister Nick Smith, was claiming credit for this time last year, in a Budget press release. Yesterday's desperate catch-up attempt by Social Housing Minister Amy Adams is a welcome gesture, but her grandly titled Crown Building Project will in effect only add 2,600 houses a year for the next ten, which is an underwhelming response to a full blown calamity. And given this…