NZ’s second-cheapest house triples in value in less than three years
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This Kaitangata house sold for $45,000 in December 2019.
The fittings aren’t finished and it’s an hour from the nearest city, yet one South Otago house has more than tripled in value in less than three years.
No interior walls? No worries – it’s still the second-cheapest freehold house in the country listed on Trade Me property.
At the end of 2019, a 109-year-old villa on a quarter acre section on Poole St, Kaitangata, sold for $45,000. It is now on the market for $149,000.
Katrina Garside, from One Agency, is the real estate agent involved in the property. She has been in the industry for 18 years and is not surprised – she says it’s supply and demand in action.
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“Clutha has always been a rural area, but there are a lot of jobs here … people move here and stay here,” she said.
Communities like Kaitangata in the Clutha district have also been proactive in improving public assets, and in recent years locals have opened new businesses, like a daycare and workshop.
Garside said two houses had recently sold for $300,000 or more in Kaitangata, even one with fewer bedrooms than the Poole St property.
“A few years ago, before the new laws came in increasing rental standards, a lot of investors sold their rentals in the area … nobody saw the big picture.
“It was great because all the young first home buyers could buy, but I’d say for every five houses on the market, three were rentals.”
She said the quality of rental stock had increased with the new laws, but people were paying between $380 and $420 a week for them, compared to about $280 beforehand.
At $149,000, the Kaitangata house was the second-cheapest property in New Zealand on freehold land listed on Trade Me property this week.
The listing’s description said the current owners were unable to finish the project and the house was being sold “as is, where is”.
Less than 10 minutes away in the larger town of Balclutha, the cheapest house there has also tripled in value since it was last sold, albeit in 2015, and the owners are now asking for $299,000 or higher.
The cheapest house in the whole country on Trade Me was a two-bedroom property in Westport that also had stripped walls. It had an asking price of $140,000 or higher.