Kerikeri is the place to live but house prices nearing $1m

Kerikeri business leader Jason Vokes with subdivided lots at Rangitane River Park in the background ready to be snapped up. Photo/Peter de Graaf

Whangarei

Online residential property viewings for Northland are upwards of 44,000 a month and Kerikeri, where house prices are creeping towards the $1 million mark, is the preferred place to buy.

Figures supplied by realestate.co.nz—which has about 97 per cent of all properties listed for sale in New Zealand — show there were 44,139 online viewings of Northland properties in June from as far away as Georgia, England and California.

Properties in Kerikeri topped the number of viewings at 6567, followed by Mangawhai with 3419, Kamo 3223, Kaitaia 3190 and Russell 3035.

Nearly 19,000 or 42 per cent of all viewings were from Aucklanders.

Chairman of Kerikeri and District Business Association, Jason Vokes, said the town was attractive to foreigners as well as those from outside Northland for a number of reasons, including location, warm climate and less traffic.

"Kerikeri has had people from Auckland and more lately Tauranga who have either cash in the bank or prefer a relatively easy lifestyle, although it's not very well-served health wise."

Kerikeri had a population of about 7500 as at the end of June last year. However, 16,286 patients were enrolled with two GPs in Kerikeri and one in Waipapa at the end of 2017.

Students numbers are also swelling in Kerikeri. The roll at Bay of Islands International Academy rose from 94 in 2015 to 126 — a 34 per cent hike, while the number of students at Riverview Primary School increased 33 per cent— from 345 in July 2015 peaking at 460 this year.

More than 44,000 people viewed Northland properties online in just a month. Photo/Michael Cunningham

Vokes said population growth, demand for houses, higher building and compliance costs, and a lack of available land were all contributing to high residential property prices.

Even on the commercial front, he said there were no empty shops or properties offering short-term leases in central Kerikeri, unlike two years ago.

"It's difficult to build even an entry-level house for under $600,000. For an executive two to three bedroom with double garage, you're looking at between $900,000 and $1 million," he said.

Vokes said houses available for sale were either less or were old properties whereas not enough were being built because water and sewerage infrastructure could not handle the pressure.

Construction has started on Kerikeri's $25.6 million sewage treatment plant to replace the struggling 29-year-old plant on Shepherd Rd. It will treat 1000 cubic metres of sewage a day, or three times the amount the old one can handle, and should be up and running by March next year.

Realestate.co.nz figures show 5152 or nearly 14 per cent of all Northland viewings were from abroad, with those from New South Wales topping the list of foreigners at 1616 viewings.

There were 1359 viewings for Northland properties from Queensland, 1120 from England and 935 from the Australian state of Victoria.

In New Zealand, Northlanders were the second highest viewers at 7550 views, Wellington 2116, Waikato 1595, Canterbury 1359 and Bay of Plenty 1275.

Another set of data released by realestate.co.nz shows the asking price, housing stock, and property listings in Northland all fell in June. The average asking house price in Northland dipped 3.1 percent to $586,702.

Housing stock was down 6.7 per cent to 1242 compared with the national figure of 3.8 percent. It took 29 weeks for residential properties to sell in June.

New property listings fell in 15 of the 19 regions in June, which represented a 9.9 per cent drop compared with June last year.