Hutt Valley and Porirua City Property Update - August 2019

Posted 23 Aug '19

by Kelly Lowe on
Article appears under: Wellington, Insurance, Local Markets

The Hutt Valley and Porirua regions, just north of Wellington, are both keeping on with a steady growth cycle over the last few months despite it being Winter. The number of listings are still low and we are anticipating and looking forward to spring bringing new options to the market. The monthly Property Price Index report out this week has been able to quantify what we are seeing at the coalface, with the asking prices jumping to over 14% above what they were a year ago. 

Local councils in our region are about to update GV's in some of our areas over the coming months. This is always an interesting time as many people will see a large positive jump in the paper value of their properties and this usually gives the market another boost.

We are still seeing a lot of first home buyers in the market and nearly all properties are going to multi offer situation, driving up prices further. There has been less investment type properties coming onto the market as I suspect those that updated insulation etc before the deadline are now committed for the next few years to holding on during this growth period.

Since my last update, insurance has become a more complex process to get for this area, particularly for cross lease properties where there are adjoining units. It is a very good idea to have an insurance clause in your contract and really making sure you can get cover before you go unconditional. In the "good old days" insurance was a quick one phone call to your existing company to add a new property on to your existing group cover. Now days it is more often 3 or 4 phone calls comparing pricing and cover, or ask a broker to assist you with this to make it less painful.  

With the growth of interest from iFindProperty clients in our area of the world, and the great deals we are finding, we have just hired another "Assistant Property Finder" who will be starting with us soon. She will also bring a wealth of knowledge and experience around ways to renovate a property to gain significant equity - having completed 17 renovations or so over the last few years. This will bring another set of experienced property finder eyes to our market so we can hopefully bring you even more great investment opportunities. If you are interested in finding out more about the northern cities bordering Wellington please contact us for a no obligation chat.

Kelly Lowe

Kelly Lowe

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