Latest / Best of Business / Rawdon Christie: real estate agent on the rise in townhouses taking too long to sell

Transcript

Rawdon Christie: real estate agent on the rise in townhouses taking too long to sell · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talks. It'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: There are concerns then, instead of a shortage of housing
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: in Auckland, we now have too many townhouses. In fact,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: some are taking so long to sell as long as
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: a year, that they're losing their status as new builds.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Auckland real estate agent Ruden Christie is with us now I.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Rowden, Hello, how are you doing?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I'm well, thanks mate. Now what do you reckon? Is
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: this an oversupply of housing in general or is this
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: a townhouse thing?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: It's a bit of both, I reckon. Here's the reality
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: that we all know that this what's the revised plan
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: change one twenty for Auckland has now one point six
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: million new homes, no longer two million new homes. Let's
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: do the maths on this. You think three people maybe
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: live in a house, so one point six So four
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: and a half million people are now being catered for
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: to enter Auckland in the next what twenty thirty forty years?
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: That ain't going to happen. So we know that that
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: that whole thing is just political. I mean, well certainly,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: well I don't know, but that's what I you know,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: it's a political game by Chris Bishop and the lads
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and lasses in Parliament. So so that's one part of
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: the equation. But on the townhouse side of things, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: is probably where I'm slightly more informed, given the fact
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: that this is a sort of daily, daily bread, there's
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: no doubt that the developments where you've got maybe six
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: eight terrace houses, three bedroom terrace houses, all in a
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: row on a section or you know, what was the
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: thousand squameter section, it's not that they're struggling to sell,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: but there are so many of them that there's just
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: not enough demand to meet that supply. I mean that
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: they don't sell easily, but it's not that they're unsellable.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: There's just too many of them.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So is it too much of too many of exactly
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the same thing, or is it ultimately that even though
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: you know, even though we're talking about density, we all
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: really just want to stand alone house.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Well, what we're seeing is a slight change in developer
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: trend from the stack him in as much as you
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: can into that little bit of land, i e. Three stories,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: three beds, terracets, so shared walls makes it cheaper to build,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: but they're three stories because you can get more in there,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: and they will each maybe have the one garage down below,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: and an almost impossible turning circle to actually get into
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: the garage because they're so clustered. We're now seeing developers
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: the provisor here is that, you know, I work in
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: a relatively well held part of town where people might
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: be able to spend a little bit more for their home.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: But what we're seeing now is them actually adopting a
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: standalone model. Just what you said. So rather than putting
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: fifteen in there, let's put eight stand alone two story houses,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: which are still three bedrooms because they're two stories, they're
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: obviously a bit cheaper to build, despite the fact they
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: don't have the shared wall anymore. But the demand is
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: so much higher for those standalone homes that the math
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: starts adding up, and most of these actually potentially come
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: with Okay, maybe the single car park garage. Arguably it
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: double would be great, but they'd certainly maybe have another
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: off street park because this is another factor, you know,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: influencing buyers that we're running out of space for the
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: second car on the street. So these this model gives
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a little bit more space for everyone.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Rden, you've said everything I think already. Thank you
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: very much, really appreciate your time. Rud and Christy, real
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: estate agent knows the Staffe.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talks B listen live on air
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio