Housing NZ cashes in on Auckland

Housing NZ gets NZ$8.76 million - 50% more than valuation - for Auckland properties; land to be developed

Property

Housing NZ gets NZ$8.76 million - 50% more than valuation - for Auckland properties; land to be developed

17th Apr 13, 11:09am by David Hargreaves

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/">Image sourced from Shutterstock.com</a>

Housing New Zealand is cashing in to the tune of NZ$8.76 million for 17 old state house properties in Auckland's Sandringham.

The adjoining vacant sites in Sandringham's Haverstock Road (numbers 98-130) were sold as seven titles to an unnamed developer through a tender conducted by Bayleys. The 17 properties on the sites were earlier removed.

The combined price is more than 50% higher than the Auckland Council valuations of the land and follows the earlier sale at auction of two other adjoining Housing NZ properties in Haverstock Road (numbers 94 and 96) for a combined NZ$1.91 million.

A statement from Housing NZ gave no details of the buyer of the 17 properties, or whether it was the same buyer that bought the two properties earlier at auction.

All of the properties sold are in the Mt Albert Grammar school zone and are zoned as mixed residential, which means the land could be redeveloped as separate housing, terraced housing or apartments.

Housing NZ's general manager asset development Sean Bignell said the money made from the sales would be enough for "at 40 new, fit for purpose, state houses".

"The money made from these sales will be reinvested into building good quality state homes in Auckland," he said.

"Land prices have increased significantly in Sandringham in recent years and, as a public sector organisation, we sold the land because it was too costly for Housing NZ to redevelop within this highly valued suburb.

"The benefit is we can now build even more houses in areas where we need them, including suburbs nearby where redevelopment is financially possible - such as Three Kings, where Housing NZ is currently building a 22 unit complex."

The purchase of the 17 Haverstock Road properties sold in the tender will be settled in August.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

6 Comments

by waymad | 17th Apr 13, 5:04pm 1366175092

My crystal ball sees a stack of <whatever the minimum size apartment is> in the <whatever the operative plan du jour is> square meter sized apartments, built with <whatever won't fall down till after the Building Inspector's last visit> and sold to <desperate first homeowners locked out of conventional housing> because of <a combination of well-known factors including restrictive TLA's, cheap credit, materials cartels and low industry productivity> rising in the place of the aforesaid State Houses, to the cheers of the Labour party (2,000 houses in a Single Block! 50 of these and we've Hit the Target!), Len Brown (go on, you'll Love living here, it's the Future!), the Greens (We Know Best, so just move in already and STFU), the investors (whoa! we can pack X houses, Y storeys high, on Z plot size, for XYZ cubed pesos Profit! Wheee! Where's the Next fire sale?) and the Banks (you mean we only need One street address for 600 mortgage slaves?), but after that it fogged up.

So, BH, is there a prize for the longest and most convoluted sentence, on offer???

And, please, NOT a free apartment!

by President of P… | 17th Apr 13, 10:21pm 1366194118

Nice wordsmithing for what we all know is coming.

by iconoclast | 18th Apr 13, 12:01am 1366200103

But, But, But Waymad. You forgot an important bit. Where are you going to put all their cars. If you have 600 apartments in one street (thats 12 apartment towers at 50 apartments per tower) you cant have underground parking. People wont use them. You will need 6 apartment towers and 6 parking buildings. You will have to intersperse each apartment tower with a parking building tower so you are only going to get 300 person mortgages but each person will need two mortgages. 1 for the apartment and 1 for the carpark. Gets worse if there is a couple in one apartment and they both have a car. Then where do you put all the wheelie bins on rubbish night? The ground floor of each apartment tower will be for parking the wheelie bins. Think of all the local body rates loot and body-corporate fees.

by waymad | 18th Apr 13, 10:04am 1366236257

Public transport will solve everything, icon smasher. Len, the Greens, and several common taters on this very site, all agree.

What could Possibly go wrong?

by Esprit | 17th Apr 13, 7:39pm 1366184372

I bet you they'll be all of those things, but I bet you they'll also be $550k-$600k+ a piece, despite being exactly the sort of thing Len, John, Bill, Olly and Nick think first home buyers should be lowering their expectations to.

by Christov | 18th Apr 13, 9:16am 1366233374

This is not news....as it was always the planned agenda to maximise returns on State houses earmarked for sale.....from Tamaki to Mt Albert... the cashing in has quitetly ticked away for some time now......

You can't help but appreciate it would not be in the State interest to cool a market working in favour of recapitalising, restructuring, relocating ,rebuilding State dwellings in a fiscally neutral manner................not that it ..is neutral...just that, with the best outcomes in property sales aiding the possibility of.. a neutral ...or dare I say it, profit position.