Home or castle? 213 Hawke's Bay properties sold for more than $1 million

Sprawling Taradale, once a town and now a Napier suburb, and where million-dollar home sales are now common. Photo / File

The big numbers have rolled out in Hawke's Bay's property market with three sold this year for over $3 million in the first six months, and 213 being sold for over $1 million.

The figures, revealed by the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, compare with one $3 million-plus sale in the first six months of last year, while the increase in the number sold for more than $1m represents an increase of 317.6 per cent on the January-June 202 total of 51. Details show three of the sales have been more than $3 million.

Nationwide, the number of 14,776 million-dollar homes sold in the first half of this year was 167.9 per cent up on the 5516 in the first half of last year, according to a media release on behalf of the REINZ on Thursday.

Senior communications adviser Kim Thompson confirmed the figures are for residential sales – thus not including rural farm or lifestyle block sales.

According to other figures, the trends are not slowing. In the past 15 days in Napier alone there have been almost 50 sales, more than a fifth topping $1 million. A modern three-bedroom home in Ahuriri sold last week for $2,420,000, in a sale by tender, and there had been a private treaty sale of over $2 million for a Hospital Hill home in early July.

An auction of a property in Avondale Rd, Taradale, last week realised $1,160,000, and another home in the Poraiti area sold at more than $1.3 million a week earlier.

An auction of a home in Nuffield Ave, Marewa, was brought forward because of the demand, highlighting some of the trend across the city. It sold for $665,000 this week.
The median sale price in Napier is currently $935,000.

The market stuns even those in the real estate industry, including former broadcaster Kevin Wagg who, coming-up three years in the business in Napier, says the prices being paid and the way it is being pushed by demand is "ridiculous".

But the demand is there, from people ready to buy usually getting the nod over those still needing to pull the financial strings together to meet the balance.

"I feel sorry for the first-home buyer who has pulled together $100,000 for a deposit and still has to get the finance, while a buyer who has recently sold can settle within 2-3 days," Wagg said.

The sales range from modern upper-end homes to those with poorer-conditioned homes ready to be demolished or removed on larger sections to make way for new multiple-unit builds.

"Area is everything," he said. "If it [the property] is over 800 square metres it's gold."

The increases are being experienced nationwide, all areas having seen at least a doubling of the number of million-dollar sales and ranging from the 132.5 per cent increase in Otago (from 206 to 479 sales) to the 437.5 per cent increase in Marlborough (from 8 sales to 43).

Price-rocketing leader Auckland was showing comparative restraint, with just a 145.3 per cent increase (from 4067 sales to 9977).