Dreaming the impossible dream

Ayelet (left) and Vishi Rottenberg and their daughter Gaea, 3, can’t afford to buy a house in Arrowtown. Picture / Simon Baker

Ayelet Rottenberg left Israel 4 1/2 years ago and found paradise in Central Otago.

She and husband Vishi and daughter Gaea, 3, fell in love with Arrowtown, a former goldmining settlement near Queenstown with picture postcard scenery.

The couple run a Chemdry cleaning franchise in Queenstown and are doing well financially, yet are forced to rent a cramped two-bedroom home. Buying a house in the area seems an impossible dream.

The housing boom in the Central Otago lakes area, driven by sky-rocketing prices in the resort towns of Queenstown and Wanaka, has recently displaced Auckland as the least affordable district in the country to buy a home.

Based on average weekly earnings and median property prices, the latest AMP Home Affordability Report says it will take nine years to buy a house in the Central Otago lakes area, compared to 8 1/2 years in Auckland.

In Arrowtown, the median price has hit $467,681. Mrs Rottenberg despairs about not being able to buy a home as she awaits the birth of her second child.

"I am going over the Property Press every time it gets here. I'm still from time to time looking at our bank account and thinking maybe something would come up or maybe the prices are going down. But it's really not realistic," Mrs Rottenberg says.

Queenstown-Lakes Mayor Clive Geddes worries families like the Rottenbergs are being squeezed out by sky-rocketing house prices and the area will become a playground only for the rich.

"Almost half of our property owners, we know, have no intention of ever being normally resident in the district. And there is no question that their impact on the real estate market is to lever prices up to the point where people who do want to live here can barely afford it," Mr Geddes says.

"There are a large number of people who have been living here for some years who look at the very high property prices and think: well hang on, here's an opportunity, let's sell our Queenstown house, let's go up to Christchurch, buy a house for a third the value, be involved in a community that doesn't work seven days, 364 and a half days a year ... and I have to say who can blame them."

Real Estate Institute Central Otago president Richard Newman says people come to the Central Otago Lakes area for the lifestyle, but don't always find it what they expect.

"They get here and find it's really hard to work, the cost of living is high and the wages are lower. Most people take a drop in salary to come to live here - we are talking thousands of dollars," Mr Newman says.

"A lot of elderly people, and young, go to Invercargill every month and they stock up on their groceries. It's not just food, it's petrol. We are 4c or 5c a litre dearer than Invercargill, Dunedin."

Real estate agent Kelvin Collins says the area lacks a "south side of the railway line".

"We don't have that first-home starting point that most areas do.

"If you look at Queenstown, the majority of houses here have been built here in the last 20 years. They are all three bedrooms, two bathrooms etc."

Scott Figenshow has tackled the issue of home affordability in California for the last 14 years and has now been appointed to tackle it in Central Otago.

He is working with one developer to ensure 5 per cent of a large new subdivision south of Queenstown is set aside for "affordable" housing.

"It is increasingly important to have the key workforce live in the district - for Wanaka's firemen to live in Wanaka and not have them commute from Cromwell," Mr Figenshow says.

"The economy of the entire district is heavily reliant on tourism and tourism requires you to have people working in the community."

Tourist coach driver Matt Constable, 33, has lived in Arrowtown for the last six years and loves the town, but when it came to buying a house he had to look further afield.

He bought a section in Te Anau, Fiordland, for $85,000 to build on and get a foot into the property market.

It may mean he eventually moves to Te Anau to live. Many of his friends have already left the area because of daunting property costs.

"They can make more money elsewhere and there are cheaper costs of living elsewhere," Mr Constable says.

"When no one is left here, who is going to run the town?"

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9 - time in years it will take to buy a home in the Central Otago lakes area.

8 1/2 - time in years to buy a house in Auckland.

$467,681 - median price in Arrowtown.