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In this month’s issue:

• What’s Driving the Current Market?
• Phil O’Reilly Speaks at Client Evening

For the latest edition of Harcourts MarketWatch CLICK HERE

The hotspots of Auckland and Christchurch continue to produce great results. These two markets, however, must be classified as unique and in parallel to the remainder of the country as other regions slowly, steadily but surely recover off the back of historically, record lows.  Auctions continue to be the selling method of choice as buyers bid competitively to secure their property before any rate hikes stunt buying.  As reported by John Key in this week’s news conference ‘the Government are looking to find solutions to Auckland’s house price rises and land supply issues.’ Will we see any action soon?

Hayden Duncan

Harcourts Group, CEO

@HarcourtsNZ

Disclaimer:  All Harcourts MarketWatch figures are current to the end of the reported month and are compared to the same month ended for the previous year.  ‘Written Sales’ is defined by all sales brought to contract status, where ‘Settled Sales’ are the results of contracts completed at the close of the reported month.  Written Sales are a snapshot of the markets temperature while Settled Sales show what has happened in the previous month.

Harcourts’ Northern Region continues to experience heightened activity with high auction numbers and a rising median sale price which keeps creeping up each month, following a strong start to the year.

Read more….

To view this month’s Property Management Focus

CLICK HERE

In this month’s issue:

Is your property up to scratch? There are changes on the horizon, what are they are what do you need to do

Team property: Having the right people around can make all the difference

Tenancy agreements by the book: Ticking the boxes and crossing the t’s can be more work than you think

The first stage of the Summerfields subdivision in Cromwell went on sale last week with Harcourts.

Twenty similarly sized sections between McNulty Rd and Stowell Dr were all priced at $99,000.

As part of the early-bird special, buyers were offered a $3000 incentive towards landscaping or home decorating for any deal on a 600 square metre plot until Friday.

Harcourts Cromwell manager John Petre said the section offer was timed to coincide with the opening of the $20 million Highlands Motorsport Park.

But the first 20 sections released to the public were all signed up by Good Friday. Mr Petre said most buyers were from Otago or Southland.

Source: Southland Times 02/04/13

Around 3000 square metres of industrial land was bought or leased in Hamilton last year, a sign of strong growth in the city, commercial property experts say.

About 37,200 sq m of space was added to Hamilton’s industrial stock last year, an annual survey of industrial land compiled by NAI Harcourts and CBRE has shown.

In that time, overall vacancy levels dropped from 5.7 per cent in 2011 to 3.6 per cent, as about 3000 sq m of space was leased or bought.

“The city has a filling-up feel about it which is really good,” NAI Harcourts director Theo de Leeuw said.

“The filling-up is both owner-occupiers who are buying and taking advantage of the lower interest rate regime as well as tenancies expanding.”

De Leeuw said part of the growth was due to a squeeze on industrial space in Manukau and South Auckland which has seen a shift of focus for industrial companies now seeing Hamilton as a viable alternative.

“Hamilton is really becoming the next destination to do warehousing, manufacturing . . . and it has great proximity to other markets like Auckland,” he said. “We are getting enquiries from businesses outside the city who are looking for locations inside the city . . . a number of people are looking at Hamilton and the Waikato positively as a food bowl and being able to service that.”

Trends noted by the survey included a drift of industrial companies from Frankton to Te Rapa, but Frankton vacancies still fell by 1.3 per cent last year.

De Leeuw said new start businesses were taking advantage of Frankton’s established industrial strength and close proximity to the CBD.

Karl van Gisbergen, also a director at NAI Harcourts, said the number of large industrial leases signed on to between $100,000 and $250,000-a-year last year increased significantly.

“The activity is there at present and from the mood out there it certainly seems sustainable, we haven’t seen that since 2007 or 2008,” he said.

“It shows you that there are large companies looking to come to Hamilton, or to expand and reactivate development plans.

“Companies that have been sitting on their hands have finally decided that they are going to do something, they’re feeling the uplift.”

Monitored industrial building stock in Hamilton now measures 1.5 million sq m – about an eighth of the size of Auckland’s industrial market.

The industrial precinct known as Te Rapa North experienced the most industrial development last year, a total of 16,503 sq m, with the completion of large-scale projects such as the 2912 sq m Couplands Bakery building.

Stock volumes in Te Rapa South grew by 14,986 sq m over the year with new builds such as the 4124 sq m Perry Metal Protection factory.

Frankton saw a minor increase of 3106 sq m, but most of that was the addition of several industrial properties to the survey which are outside the Hamilton city boundary. All industrial precincts recorded an overall decrease in vacancy over the past year, with the largest improvement in Te Rapa South and North where vacancies more than halved.

Frankton has the highest overall vacancy rate at 5.8 per cent, down from 7.1 per cent.

The Te Rapa North precinct has the lowest overall vacancy rate at 1.3 per cent, down from 3.4 per cent, and the Te Rapa South vacancy rate fell 3 per cent from 5.4 per cent to 2.4 per cent. The survey identified 52 industrial-zoned sites that were vacant, which measured a total of 28.4 hectares, on the market and available for development, most of which are 0.5ha or less.

Frankton has 12.8ha of that vacant land, Te Rapa North has slightly less with 10.7ha and Te Rapa South has only 2.9ha free.

Six sites are available over 4ha, all within the Frankton precinct, and the largest space available is a 6.1ha block at 17-43 Gallagher

Waikato Times 13/03/2013

Journalist: KASHKA TUNSTALL;

Australia:

The majority of our Australia buyers feel the market is in line with their expectations, with 83% of buyers this year spending about the same amount as expected.  Looking towards the next 12 months, 41% of Australian Sellers & Purchasers expect the market to remain steady over the next year, while 41% expect prices to increase over the next 12 months.

Did you spend more money, less money or about the same as you had expected?

Do you think property prices will increase, decrease or stay the same over the next 12 months?

New Zealand:

Likewise, over half of New Zealand buyers feel the market is in line with their expectations, with 59% of buyers this year spending about the same amount as expected.  Nearly 1/3^rd of buyers (27%) spent more than expected.  Looking towards the next 12 months, 49% of New Zealand Sellers & Purchasers expect the market to increase over the next year, while 31% expect prices to remain steady over the next 12 months.

Did you spend more money, less money or about the same as you had expected?

Do you think property prices will increase, decrease or stay the same over the next 12 months?

Colliers International’s national director research and consulting Alan McMahon told delegates at a Property Council meeting in Auckland that demand for high-grade, structurally secure buildings was high.

“The pendulum is definitely swinging back in the landlords’ direction, with the exception of earthquake-prone stock. Rents for top end buildings will go up.

“Overall the situation is pretty good. Rents in Auckland’s CBD and metro areas are improving, and we are predicting growth in the industrial market along with Wellington’s prime office market.”

McMahon recognised that the majority of owners of buildings built before 1976 were individuals who might not have the financial ability to strengthen their properties to the required earthquake standards.

ASB Bank’s chief economist Nick Tuffley agreed earthquake strengthening was becoming a property market issue, particularly but not exclusively in Wellington.

He said ASB had seen its property finance book pick up strongly in the second half of last year, and the pipeline for this year had more than doubled.

“To put that in perspective, overall market credit to the business sector remains muted, so property appears to be gaining strong momentum.”

Meanwhile, in the residential housing market, one of the country’s largest real estate firms, Harcourts, says a shortage of listings nationally is beginning to bite.

“Every region in the country, with the exception of the central North Island, has seen the inventory of property available to buyers reduce in February, when measured against the same time in 2012,” said Hayden Duncan, Harcourts’ chief executive.

The data now coming out of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and the provincial South Island seemed to confirm Auckland’s robust market was inspiring confidence further afield.

“The Government still remains in a state of paralysis, seemingly to be doing more politicking than showing any signs of real action to relieve this accommodation shortage,” Duncan said.

“Let’s hope they soon free up the reins that are holding many developers from creating homes and much-needed construction jobs.”

Harcourts figures showed new exclusive listings in January were down 11 per cent in its northern region – which includes Auckland – than at the same time last year.

But competition for properties had pushed its auctions to a record level, up 106 per cent.

It was a similar story in quake-affected Christchurch, where new listings were 21 per cent lower than last year, and auction rooms were “overflowing”.

Increased competition for stock had pushed the number of auctions up 42 per cent, but prices remained flat.

However, in provincial South Island, where many quake victims have moved, prices were up 21.5 per cent and new listings were down 8.6 per cent.

Auctions jumped 80 per cent but Harcourts cautioned that the price hikes were off a low base and could be skewed.

In the central North Island, confidence in the rural market seemed to be flowing through to sales. Listings lifted by a marginal 1.6 percent but there was a 28 per cent rise in written sales, albeit off a low base.

In Wellington, new listings were down 4.9 per cent, and prices were 5.4 per cent lower than the previous year.

However, auctions were up 27 per cent and written sales were up 24 per cent, indicating that supply and demand was starting to come back in the capital.

Stuff.co.nz by Catherine Harris, 19 February 2013

NAI Harcourts new Viaduct Office team with Richard Laery, general manager, NAI Harcourts NZ (far right). From left: Rex Worthington, Ranjan Unka, Nick Wevers, Tatiana Fuentes, Richard Laery

NAI Harcourts has opened its new Auckland Viaduct office on Level One of Orcacom House at 32 Market Place occupying one of five floors within the building.

Nick Wevers, the new franchise owner of NAI Harcourts Auckland Viaduct, says he chose the location because it was close to the waterfront, has ease of access to the all the motorways and because it enables his team of four to be linked to all the main business hubs of Auckland.

The 259 sq m office has a mixture of open plan and closed office spaces with the fit out purpose-built to encourage the team communication in a collaborative and open working environment.

“With specially designed seating, up to twelve consultants can work at their stations but still remain closely connected as a team,” Wevers says. “A large boardroom and meeting room complete the specialised fit out for client privacy when needed.”

Having road frontage access the office sits within the block of the Viaduct’s Customs St West and Pakenham Street East.

In addition to Wevers the Viaduct team includes: Ranjan Unka who has been in commercial and industrial sales and leasing since 2007 and who also has over 15 years in sales and marketing; Rex Worthington with over 25 years’ experience in the real estate industry; and Tatiana Fuentes who is “well established and well-respected in the real estate industry.”

Richard Laery, general manager, NAI Harcourts NZ, says Wevers brings to the new office many years of expertise and an extensive background in commercial property, including his having been the CEO of a listed commercial property investment company.

“In the last 12 months, Nick has been involved in over $60 million dollars of commercial sales in a variety of locations around the North Island with several of these transactions being large format retail properties,” Laery says. “He has participated in several substantial transactions including representing the purchaser of a large CBD office building and advising private clients with property acquisitions and disposals. Nick is well known to many corporate and large institutional owners all around the country and also spent three years as National President of the Property Council of New Zealand.”

Wevers says his focus will be to deliver a professional service to clients in the commercial, industrial and leasing markets in Auckland and New Zealand while leveraging NAI Harcourts’ international network. “My intention is to grow a strong team and standout business that will service a wide range of clients,” he says.

Published NZ HERALD, Prime Assets 16 February 2013