For the second time this month, buyers have pre-empted developers and snapped up prime downtown housing before it has been advertised, let alone built.
No sooner was word out that plans had been finalised for a $20 million waterfront hotel andluxury apartment complex on Dive Cres than would-be residents were queuing to sign up.
In one day, Civenco developers Geoff and Shelley Payne sold nine of the 12 apartments, worth $9 million, planned for the third storey of their Trinity Wharf Hotel.
"It more than surprised us. We were quite ill-prepared," Mrs Payne admitted.
The buyers - all local - put down deposits even though contracts, specifications and body corporate fees were not ready.
One was prepared to shell out $2.2 million for two adjoining apartments and there was strong interest in the remaining three.
Two weeks ago, Tauranga people bought almost all the 32 penthouses and apartments in a planned Durham St twin tower block overlooking the harbour.
Within days, "flabbergasted" developers Clive Tippins and Rex Pollock signed up $39 million of deals for the 11-storey Crown and Regency Towers in their Kingsview Resort. They then had to cancel a $100,000 promotion.
Mrs Payne said the Civenco Construction project had been caught in Kingsview's "tailwind".
"The timing was great for us."
The Paynes have been trying to get a hotel financed on the Dive Cres perpetual lease site for 10 years. Now the building of Tauranga's largest hotel is expected to start in September and be completed at the end of next year.
Originally planned as a 60-room boutique hotel, it will be twice that size. Part of it, including the bar and restaurant, will be built on three piers.
Neville Falconer, immediate past president of the Real Estate Institute's Waikato-Bay of Plenty district, is not surprised by the demand for inner-city apartments.
While such development had thrived at Mt Maunganui, there had been a "dearth" in Tauranga, which was now seen as an alternative.
