Three adjoining state homes on Amy St, Ellerslie, with council valuations each above $2 million, are part of an estimated $500m sell-off by Kāinga Ora in the coming financial year, with the Herald identifying 841 properties in Auckland that may go on sale.
Three adjoining state homes on Amy St, Ellerslie, with council valuations each above $2 million, are part of an estimated $500m sell-off by Kāinga Ora in the coming financial year, with the Herald identifying 841 properties in Auckland that may go on sale.
Our exclusive analysis maps the streets and suburbs with 841 of Auckland’s most valuable state homes in what could be a treasure map for developers eyeing Kāinga Ora’s sweeping sell-off.
A Herald analysis found 841 state homes in inner Auckland with CVs of at least $1.5m that are collectively worth $1.7b and could be among those considered for sale by Kāinga Ora.
Developers see many of these properties as ‘goldmines’ because they offer big land sections in sought-after locations.
Kāinga Ora plans to reinvest money from home sales in expensive suburbs into building new houses in ‘affordable’ areas.
A Herald analysis has identified 841 of Auckland’s most valuable state homes, worth a combined $1.7 billion, which might beconsidered for sale as part of a sweeping Government sell-off.
Developers would likely view many of the properties as “goldmine” opportunities should they go on the market, with 32 of the homes having council valuations of $3 million or more and a further 343 with $2m-plus CVs.
They include the city’s most valuable state home on Trinity St, Ponsonby, worth $3.9m, and a collection of Ōrākei homes on a 1.7ha stretch of Kupe St land worth $6.6m.
Priority will be given to selling those in the most sought-after locations, including 200 homes valued at about $2m each, Housing Minister Chris Bishop earlier said.
Harcourts JK Realty owner and real estate agent David Findlay said the looming sell-off was “hugely” exciting for developers.
His agency recently sold three Kāinga Ora homes on adjoining Mount Albert blocks, which sparked 100 inquiries and 17 offers.
“There was a lot of very, very keen people looking at those.”
Kāinga Ora estimates it could earn as much as $500m from sales of state homes across New Zealand this financial year.
One-third of those are expected in Auckland where it is sitting on a treasure trove of land with development potential in suburbs such as Ōrākei, Ponsonby, Westmere, Meadowbank, Sandringham and Point Chevalier.
Ray White Manukau co-owner Tom Rawson earlier called the homes goldmines for developers.
Their desirable locations typically offered lower risk and higher returns for those planning to knock down the state homes and build townhouses.
He believed the sell-off could mark one of Auckland’s most significant releases of prime land in years.
Critics say the sell-off risks creating state home ghettos in outer suburbs and that it‘s unfair for the current Government to cash in on potentially billions of dollars of sales without having an innovative plan to use the money or reduce the thousands of people on state housing waiting lists.
Kāinga Ora, meanwhile, said it will reinvest all money from the sales into new homes in more affordable areas.
“Kāinga Ora is not reducing the number of homes it owns. For each existing Kāinga Ora home sold, a newly built home is delivered elsewhere,” Gareth Stiven, from the agency’s finance and policy division, said.
Waterfront Ōrākei – home to some of Auckland’s most luxurious mansions – is one of the suburbs developers and other buyers are likely to target should Kāinga Ora start selling homes there.
The Herald identified 104 Ōrākei state homes with CVs worth $1.5m or higher.
They collectively sit on 8.6ha of land with a combined value of $246m.
Ōrākei also has five of the Auckland streets boasting the most high-value state homes.
That includes Rukutai St with $35m worth of homes, Reihana St with $30m, Tautari St with $29m, Kurahaupō St with $26m, and Kupe St with $23m.
Other top suburbs include Point Chevalier with 110 homes with a combined CV of $225m, Sandringham with 110 homes worth $204m and Westmere with 77 homes worth $172m.
Sandringham’s Kiwitea St is the road with the most homes valued $1.5m or higher. Its 21 high-value state homes have a combined $38m CV and sit on 1.2ha of land.
Lambeth Rd, stretching across Sandringham and Mt Eden, is the next most valuable street with 20 homes valued at $36m.
A $3.9m Trinity St bungalow, a few blocks from Ponsonby Rd, is the city’s most valuable state home.
It sits on a 619sq m section of land but is in a Residential – Single House Zone with heritage and special character planning restrictions.
That means it cannot be intensively developed into townhouses or subdivided.
However, its desirable location was highlighted by pop star Lorde selling the luxury villa next door for $4.3m last year.
Two Ōrākei homes on substantial blocks of land at 39 and 59 Kupe St are the next most valuable at $3.8m and $3.7m, while a 1950s fibre cement shack at 36 Webber St, Westmere, also has a $3.7m CV.
The Webber St shack is valued at $50,000 by Auckland Council while the land it sits on is worth $3.65m – highlighting how land value rather than buildings is most prized in many of the Kāinga Ora properties on our list.
List of homes for sale yet to be revealed
The Herald‘s tables do not list all properties owned by Kāinga Ora in Auckland, nor is it a list of homes planned for sale.
The government agency owns about 33,000 properties across the city and has not released a list of properties it plans to sell.
To compile our list, the Herald started by filtering out rental apartments and complexes as best as possible.
Then we restricted the list to only include select inner Auckland suburbs as well as homes with CVs of at least $1.5m.
We manually checked about 200 homes using internet tools, such as Google Maps and property website OneRoof, to try to exclude apartments and areas already under development.
There are still cross-lease homes on the list but these typically should be properties in which Kāinga Ora owns all the cross-lease titles.
The list is therefore a best estimate guide to where high-value, single-dwelling Kāinga Ora homes on large sections are located.
‘Sell-off still in early stages’
Stiven said Kāinga Ora had only begun work on its sweeping sell-off plan.
“A wide range of factors come into play when we assess which homes should be held and which homes should be sold,” he said.
“Age, location and potential for future redevelopment are key considerations, alongside the value of the property.”
Many of the properties sold will be older homes and those on high-value land, he said.
“If there are tenants living in a home we plan to sell, they will be told first and we will support them to move to another Kāinga Ora home, carefully considering their needs in matching them to a home and community.”
RNZ reports 49 state homes are currently for sale across the country, with 32 of those in Auckland.
Three humble cottages on Amy St Ellerslie, made headlines earlier this year when they were put on sale by the Government.
