Winter hot times for Coromandel property market

The property market has been hotting up on the Coromandel over the winter months, with July through to September being an unseasonably busy time of year for our LIMS department.

"We're now getting feedback from our customers and real estate agents that things are at a tipping point and very little stock remains on the market," says Christine Harrison from our LIMS department. "This seems to be especially true for Thames and Whitianga, but in saying that, we're getting LIM requests through from all areas of the Coromandel at record levels."

"Real estate agents are telling us they are desperately short of stock, everything has sold and there's nothing new to put up in the windows," says Ms Harrison. "We also understand agents now have waiting lists for properties coming onto the market and it could mean a quiet summer because there's nothing left to sell.

Market commentators say homeowners with new found equity in their projects are turning their attention to coastal areas where many prices are well below their previous peak. Nick Goodall, senior research analyst at Corelogic said his firm was starting to see more requests for valuations in such areas as Thames-Coromandel, Tauranga, Rotorua and Taupo.
In July we had 140 LIM requests, 132 for August and 150 for September.

"I've been working in our LIMs department since 2000 and these are the highest figures we've done in the winter months since I've been with Council," says Ms Harrison. "These are normal peak summer figures."

A LIM (Land Information Memorandum) is usually requested generally when an offer has been accepted on a property. "The deal actually going through is dependent on the LIM so you're at the point of buying when you're ordering a LIM," says Ms Harrison.

In terms of processing LIMs, our Council is just keeping up with our statutory obligation to process within 10 working days. "We're also seeing a lot more urgent LIMs being sought," says Ms Harrison. "A third of our LIM requests are urgent and they need to be processed within 2 working days."

An urgent LIM costs $320 while a standard LIM costs $220.
There could also be a potential flow-on effect from the volume of LIM requests.

"If people are coming in buying houses, generally we tend to see an increase in building consents as they move in and renovate," says Ms Harrison.

Along with residential LIM requests, Ms Harrison noted commercial LIM requests were also higher than usual between July - September.

Click here to find out more about LIM information here.

A snapshot of Coromandel's economy.

The provisional estimate of GDP for the Coromandel showed a growth of 4% in our economy over the year to June.

• Residential construction and real estate sectors are growing at a healthy pace as low interest rates and housing pressures push up prices in Auckland. The median house price in Thames-Coromandel was $388,000, up 3% in June 2015 compared with a year earlier.

• House price sales in the year to June 2015 increased by 4.1% compared with the previous year. A total of 780 houses were sold in the District in the 12 months to June 2015. This compares well with the ten year average of 641.

• The annual average unemployment rate was 4.5% in June 2015, down from 5.1% a year earlier

• We experienced a permanent and long-term net migration of 174 people in the year ended to June 2015 compared with a gain of 70 the year before and a ten year average of 8 (loss).

• Traffic flows increased by 5.8% over the year to June 2015 compared with an increase of 3.3% nationally.

This information is presented in a quarterly report provided to our Economic Development Committee by Infometrics, an independent company that provides economic information, analysis and forecasts.

You can view more here

ENDS

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