A three-bedroom, freestanding house in Auckland for under$500,000? Many people would tell you you’re dreaming.
And yet this is the price of a modest family home inClendon Park, an affordable housing area built in the 1970s and 1980s on thewestern side of Manurewa.
Some properties in the unassuming southern suburb even haveviews of the Manukau Harbour, and the completed Waterview Tunnel State Highway20 link to Auckland’s CBD has significantly improved access to the area. “We’reactually all of a sudden not that far south anymore,” local Don Ha Real Estateagent Ravi Singh says.
QV statistics for October show the average value of aproperty in Clendon Park is $565,000. Agents say it’s possible to buy athree-bedroom do-up on a cross lease site for under $400,000, while a renovatedhome on a full site may cost you $500,000 to $550,000.
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Granted it’s not Auckland’s best suburb. The local schoolis Decile 1, and traditionally it has been an area of rental properties.
Singh says the Reserve Bank’s LVR restrictions requiringinvestors to have a 40 per cent deposit has created a sea change, pushing theinvestors out and paving the way for home owners.
“Now the shift is happening, home buyers are starting tobuy in this area as well, simply because it’s still affordable. Where else canyou buy for under $500,000 in Auckland at the moment, for a freestanding,three-bedroom house?” he says.
Brett Thompson, who buys, renovates and onsells propertiesin the area, has also observed the movement. “I’ve noticed in the last coupleof years, even, that the whole demographic is changing.”
A number of his buyers now are young people utilising theKiwiSaver, HomeStart and other first home buyer assistance schemes.
Clendon Park houses are good, solid fibrolite weatherboardand tin roof homes of their era, and those wanting to get a foothold on theproperty ladder should try to look past the suburb’s traditional reputation,Thompson says. “It’s certainly not what it used to be five years ago.”
Century 21 real estate agent Derryn Mayne was born and bredin Manurewa and says Clendon Park is no better or worse than many southAuckland suburbs. There are some streets she would avoid, but mainly for resalevalue reasons, she says.
In her view the neighbourhood has a lot going for it – it’sclose to the Manukau city centre, the main arterial routes and the airport, andPak’nSave has just opened a large new supermarket there.
Because of the high proportion of rentals many propertieswere unrenovated, but that’s changing with the shift to home ownership. “So aseach person comes in they use it as a stepping stone to go to the nextproperty, they’re adding value to those properties. It’s making the area a betterarea to live in,” Mayne says.
With its easy access to themotorways and pleasant surrounding features such as the Botanic Gardens andTotara Park, the wider Manurewa area remains popular with first and second homebuyers and investors, Mayne says. It’s still possible to get a family home on afull-sized section for $650,000 or a cross lease for $550,000. Two-bedroomunits sell in the low $400,000s and are a good entry level option as they holdtheir value, she says.
Prices in the Clendon Park and Manurewa area have evenslipped back a little in the last year, which the agents put down to acombination of tighter bank lending policies and the slowing market generally.
“Give it a second look and don’t wait,” Don Ha’s Ravi Singhsays. “The market has come back, it’s a buyers’ market, so it’s a good time topurchase.”
