Exclusive sections at Taradale's Guppy Rd subdivision nears capacity as buyers spend $17m

Earthworks are under way at the Guppy Road residential housing development. Photo / Supplied

More than $17 million of land at a high-end housing development has been snapped up within five months, leaving room for only seven more families to join one of Taradale's newest and most internationally diverse neighbourhoods.

The development provides continuing confidence in the regional economy and follows news this week from Statistics New Zealand, which shows the Hawke's Bay's regional gross domestic product rose $342m for the year ended March 2017.

This means the Hawke's Bay economy is now worth $7.4 billion.

The $375m contribution from the region's booming construction industry noted in the statistics provided a $20m jump from the previous year and represented an all-time high.

All up, 73 houses are expected to be built at the Guppy Rd subdivision, which is being backed by people including former Charlie's Juice co-founder Stefan Lepionka's Earth Group.

If all 73 sections receive residential building consent for just one house per section, it would represent almost a third of the total number of building consents granted by Napier City Council in the whole of last year.

Harcourts agent Bryan Fulton said initial sections on the two-stage development started selling in October and the remaining seven sections are now for sale at stated prices from him and Brenda Fulton.

"There's just a few remaining, which are largely along the back boundary, so we are now getting towards the end of the process", Mr Fulton said.

"Groundwork is well under way and we're hoping to have some street layouts in within the next few days.

"There are already five waiting to put floors down now as soon as builders' titles are issued. They have indicated they hope to have them started in early April."

Mr Fulton said the sections have been sold to a diverse range of buyers.

"We've sold to a few of the smaller, local independent builders. The majority have been sold to locals and a few out-of-town people that are embracing the value of buying in Taradale."

At least three had been sold to Aucklanders moving to Hawke's Bay for the lifestyle, but there was also " a nice mixture" of people of different nationalities making purchases, he said.

"It's been really lovely, it will be like Parklands Estate, with a real mixture of people and age groups, which will make for a really nice community.

"It's the biggest development in Taradale for many years. So it's great to have two new streets going in there and all these new houses."

Mr Fulton said previous sections had sold from between $260,000 to $300,000, with sizes ranging from 512sq m up to 740sq m.

The remaining sites were expected to sell soon after the Easter holiday.