Soaring demand hastens The Lakes development

Lucas (pictured) and Emma Baker bought a section in Hastings Heights, hearing about it through word-of-mouth, before it hit the public market.

Land in The Lakes is now so high in demand it is selling before ever hitting the public market.

Every one of the 43 sections in the first stage of Classic Developments' latest subdivision, Hastings Heights, sold without ever being advertised.

Meanwhile, Carrus Corp's development of the fifth part of stage three of The Lakes has been moved forward to this summer to keep up with demand.

Both subdivisions are part of a surge of development in the area involving 2450 sections, a shopping centre and the promise of a new school.

Classic Builders co-director Matthew Lagerberg said he was astonished at the speed people snapped up the lots of the two-stage Hastings Heights subdivision, an extension of The Lakes. Sixteen were sold to sister-entity Classic Builders and twenty-seven were sold to builders or private parties.

It comes just one month after 194 sections in the third and fourth parts of Stage Three The Lakes sold within 48 hours of going on sale.

Mr Lagerberg said the Hastings Heights sales were "extremely fast-paced" and "unprecedented".

"We didn't even advertise this subdivision due to such a high number of people inquiring through word of mouth that we are developing out that way.

"There's not a lot of titled land available around Tauranga so when titled land comes up, it's like gold."

Mr Lagerberg said he could not see the huge demand slowing down any time soon, providing the economy stayed the way it was.

"At this point, we may have to release stage two sooner than expected. Stage two consists of 49 lots ranging from 500sq m to just over 1000sq m, which are slightly larger sections than stage one."

They already had people registering their interest for stage two.

Lucas and Emma Baker managed to secure themselves a 700sq m section for their future five-bedroom home.

They had heard about the future subdivision and made inquiries with Classic Developments.

Mr Baker said they had been looking for land for nearly a year and had sold their house in April.

"It was very difficult because a lot of the land is already gone. It's a very difficult market to secure land in."

Managing director for The Lakes, Scott Adams of Carrus Corp, said they had builders coming to them saying they needed more land.

They were developing and releasing the stage three land in 13 stages. The third and fourth stages sold so quickly that the fifth stage, which was scheduled to be started next summer, had been brought forward to this summer as a result of demand.

Their land releases so far had sold out to builders and their database of registered interests before it ever needed to be publicly advertised.

They were running five years ahead of their development programme which they now expected to be finished by 2020.

Construction of a $27 million shopping centre in Taurikura Drive is hoped to be finished by July 15, 2016, with shops opening towards the end of that month.

Stage one of the mall will include a Pak'n Save, The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming plus restaurants and specialty retail stores.