Coastal properties return to 2003 price levels

Coastal property prices have collapsed, sending the value of "the bach" back to 2003 levels in many areas, with no signs of a bottoming out.

The worst hit spots are weighed down by subdivisions developed in the boom-times where sections are now selling at huge discounts to original asking prices, and the impact of tumbling land prices has flowed through to holiday homes and standard residential properties.

The problem is at its most pronounced in areas such as the Far North, where the latest rating valuations have brought the first across-the-board cuts - up to 29 per cent for land value - since the Far North District Council was formed in 1989.

But the picture of sliding prices over the past three years, analysed in Property Report in Monday's Herald, is right across the upper North Island and demand has virtually dried up.

The quarterly liftout, which features QV data of house price movement in around 400 North Island areas, finds it's a buyer's market with no buyers. That's handing opportunities to bargain-hunters.

To read the full NZ Herald article, click here

Posted: 4 Dec 2010

News articles