Luxury pads slashed in price

A Tauranga developer has slashed $500,000 off his harbourside luxury apartments and others are also cutting prices as they battle a quiet market.
Many of apartment owners at Mount Maunganui are slicing an average $50,000 from their asking prices _ representing an 8 per cent decline and back to levels seen two years ago. One salesperson told the Bay of Plenty Times: "I won't take an apartment unless it's realistically priced. Owners are definitely putting $50,000 less on paper for a $600,000 apartment, and in some cases cases it's been more.
"Unless they bought within the last two years they wouldn't be losing any money, but (listing) prices have been falling since Christmas."
The salesperson, who did not want to be named, said interest had picked up over the past fortnight.
"We sell a lot of apartments to Waikato farmers, and now that the rain has arrived and the drought has broken they are coming over to have a look. There's so much choice, it's harder for them to make a decision."
None of the 12 Nautilus apartments at Sulphur Point have sold since they were completed last September.
Dublin-based developer Aidan Harrison, of Channor New Zealand, has made an across-the-board reduction of more than $500,000 for the spacious luxury apartments facing the entrance to Tauranga Harbour.
The lowest-priced apartment on the first floor is now $1.1 million instead of $1.75m, and the highest is $1.85m instead of $2.4m. But the two penthouses are still selling for $2.9m.
Nautilus sales manager Jan Wilson said: "We were adventurous to begin with and the price range is now more affordable. We are now hooking into intense television advertising and this has helped renew interest."
She said a lot of prospective buyers had been seeking to do a deal by trading their own property for a new apartment. She even had an offer of an avocado orchard.
"We could have sold a couple if we had done that but the developer is not keen _ we have a bigger stage happening here down the track," said Ms Wilson.
Mr Harrison will be re-developing Marine Park in Cross Rd _ Nautilus Apartments and the adjoining boatstack are part of that _ and hopes to establish an information-technology business park.
Four new apartments in Otumoetai with Waikareao Estuary views have sat on the market for a year. But the developer, who didn't want to be named, has a conditional contract on one and tenders for two others close next week.
"Five people have picked up tender documents and there's been more interest in the last six weeks than in the past six months," he said.
He has dropped his price by $150,000 or 15 per cent on the unsold $1m apartments.
"There are a lot of apartments sitting around and there is no pressure on anyone to buy. The market is dead anyway _ building costs are going up, so are other costs and the second-tier lenders have taken flight; it is now difficult to fund new apartments unless they are pre-sold," he said.
Yesterday, three recently completed luxury apartments in Bureta and Matua _ valued at more than $1m _ were up for auction but there were no bids.
Simon Martin, sales manager and director for Harcourts, said the apartment market was the quietest in eight years. His company had 150 apartments on its books.
"We've had single-figure apartment sales at the Mount for each of the past six months and sellers are now realising they have to reduce their prices in an effort to get a sale," he said.
But that's not the case for the 11-level Pacific Apartments being built in the high-rise zone of Maunganui Rd.
Developer Philip Lindsey will be putting prices up by 3-5 per cent this year. A $1m apartment would increase by $25,000. Costs had gone up since they started, he said. Forty of the 70 apartments in the diamond-shaped Pacific building have sold _ 10 in the past nine months _ since the development was launched in March last year.
Mr Lindsey has a conditional offer of $5.7m for the 445sq m penthouse, and a Kiwi expat working in London paid $2.5m for two apartments on the eighth floor.