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Ōtaki and Featherston will be the Wellington region’s next “hot spots” for first-time home buyers and real estate investors alike, predicts property appraiser Quotable Value.
QV area manager Paul McCorry said those buyers had already been excluded from the city of Wellington, “either because of high access costs or because of the very low return on investment cost for a investor”.
“Until now, this has made Hutt Valley a hot spot for young families and speculators alike. But where once you could get a home on a half-acre section for less than the national average, sales prices now tend to exceed a million dollars. “
Lower Hutt’s median price had risen from $ 565,000 in October 2019 to $ 761,000 in the same month this year, according to figures from REINZ. That’s a 35 percent jump.
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McCorry described a recent example where a Lower Hutt home sold in one day through negotiation for $ 1.3 million.
“It makes me wonder if Hutt Valley has run its course as a more affordable housing market,” he said.
Upper Hutt during the same period saw a 14 percent jump to an average price of $ 655,000 in October.
Ross Giblin
The mayor of Kāpiti, K (Guru) Gurunathan said that Ōtaki was changing, and not necessarily for the better.
McCorry said areas that traditionally had the most affordable housing were now seeing the biggest increases, “places like Ōtaki and Featherston.”
“With the way New Zealand’s overheated housing market is moving right now, neither Featherston nor Ōtaki can remain affordable for long.”
He said both cities only had three properties listed for rent when he reviewed, almost guaranteeing real estate investors that they would have no trouble finding tenants.
The mayor of the Kāpiti coast, K Gurunathan, said the wave of rising property values had already started to create an identity crisis in his hometown of Ōtaki.
Gurunathan said that as an area of high deprivation with many people unable to pay high rents, many people were being evicted.
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Piers Fuller / Stuff
Lower Hutt’s residential real estate market has gone haywire in the last year.
“What we’re seeing is sometimes called Ōtaki gentrification, and with that comes some positives in the sense that there is diversity coming in, but for the same reason … people are being kicked out of Ōtaki further north.”
This would change the makeup of a city where many had lived for generations.
“There is a looming crisis with our local identity and the locals are recognizing it.”
Gurunathan said a side effect of this was that the local university was considering transporting students by bus because families were moving.
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South Wairarapa Mayor Alex Beijen says Featherston’s housing was also not affordable for many people.
South Wairarapa Mayor Alex Beijen said that while Featherston had been popular with first-time home buyers in recent years due to its affordability and proximity to Wellington, that was changing rapidly.
“Unfortunately, you’re even seeing Featherston kicked out of the first-time home buyer market.”
“I bought two houses in Featherston 15 years ago for $ 66,000 each and I wish I had kept them because it wasn’t that long ago.”
