Sign of improvement in property market

A longstanding beachfront home has quickly sold for more than $2 million - a sign that life is returning to the top end of the Tauranga housing market.
The brick family home, built in 1961 on an elevated site overlooking the sea in Oceanbeach Rd, Mount Maunganui, was on the market for five weeks and it was snapped up at auction for $2.26 million, just above its capital value.
It was one of the biggest residential property sales - outside of luxury apartments - on the Mount/Papamoa coastal strip for at least two years.
"There was so much interest we moved the auction programme forward," said Eves Realty saleswoman Maggie McNulty. "The sale was a sign of improvement in the market. There's a little bit more confidence out there and we are getting more inquiry.
"Maybe the market has bottomed out, " she said.
The beachfront property had been in the Cunningham family for nearly 50 years. It was sold for the first time after 87-year-old Dorothy Cunningham left Tauranga and moved into a retirement home in Auckland to be closer to her daughter.
Four people competed for the three-bedroom house at the Eves auction. Bidding started at $1.5 million and moved quickly past the $2 million mark in $50,000 lots.
It was finally bought by a Whakatane couple and their daughter who will live there and "do some renovating".
The daughter, who did not want to be named, said "we paid a little bit more than we wanted but it went for a fair price. We are absolutely rapt - it's such a beautiful site, you have to see it to appreciate it."
The 902sq m section is uncrowded - it sits high near the beach and has a reserve on one side. The view stretches from Mauao to Maketu and out to sea.
According to Tauranga City Council records, the land had a value of $2.12 million and improvements were $93,000, producing a capital valuation of $2.213 million.
The latest national real estate institute figures showed 59 sales at the Mount and Papamoa in October - up from 54 in September but down on the 66 houses sold in October last year.
A normal market on the coastal strip represents about 100 sales a month. The median selling price in October recovered to $400,000 after falling to $377,000 in September.
The number of sales in the other Tauranga suburbs slipped to 74 in October, from 77 in September and 78 in August and well down on the October 2009 volume of 117.
The median selling price in this part of the city kept sliding to $314,000 in October, from $328,000 in September and $353,000 in August.