The Star: March 04, 2021

The Star Thursday March 4 2021
6
NEWS
CHRISTCHURCH’S housing
market boom has lifted property
values in many suburbs by
hundreds of thousands of dollars
– though one neighbourhood
appears to be missing out on the
bonanza.
According to OneRoof
research, house prices in eight
suburbs nationwide grew less
than $50,000 since 2016 – with
Shirley, Christchurch’s unwanted
representative.
Southbridge in Selwyn also
featured alongside Greymouth,
Blaketown and Cobden in the
Grey district, Ashburton plus
Papamoa and Welcome Bay in
Tauranga.
The median property value in
Shirley was $480,000 last week,
compared to $440,000 five years
ago.
Canterbury-wide the median
property value on February 25
was $535,000, an increase of
$110,000 over the last five years,
with the average price rising 13.7
per cent since Covid-19 took
hold in March, 2020.
OneRoof calculated the current
median property value in
New Zealand as $765,000, a
$140,000 increase over the past
12 months, and $290,000 escalation
over the last five years.
While Shirley appeared to lag,
James Wilson, valuation director
at OneRoof’s data partner Valocity,
offered a mitigating factor.
He noted Shirley had not
enjoyed the same high levels of
new build developments other
Christchurch suburbs had experienced
and suffered as a result.
“Places like this have had the
limelight taken off them a bit but
it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t get
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Shirley misses out on property bonanza
OPPORTUNITY: This three-bedroom house on Joy St is among a handful of properties
currently for sale in Shirley.
a good sale price,” he said.
“It just means that what’s selling,
what’s being built is not in
Shirley, it’s other locations, therefore
on paper it looks as if it’s had
pretty modest growth.”
Real estate agents also
launched a spirited defence of the
suburb, where there were 73 sales
in the 12 months to February
25, compared to 273 in nearby St
Albans.
Brendan Hart from Harcourts
agreed a lack of new builds and
rebuilds post-earthquake had
impacted on the Shirley market.
“Rebuilds and the value of
those once they’re done . . . they
can bring the average up,” he
said.
A lack of volume was another
contributing factor, with only
73 sales recorded
in the 12 months
to February 25,
compared to
273 in nearby St
Albans.
Harcourts only
Brendan
Hart
had four residential
properties
listed in Shirley
yesterday, one more than Ray
White.
“Some areas are quite tightly
held. There’s quite a few people
who have been in their houses
for many years,” Hart said.
Mitchell Roberts, another
Harcourts agent with a listing in
Shirley, offered another theory.
“The disposal of a lot of rental
properties, as-is where-is, probably
skewed the data a little bit,”
he said, pointing to an upside.
“Shirley is still very affordable
probably in comparison to Mairehau
(median price $505,000) and
St Albans ($605,000).”
Hart said first home buyers
should be targeting the area and
benefit from “the fact you get a
lot of house for your money’.
“It’s a bit of a land of
opportunity there. We have
plenty of buyers, just not enough
homes to sell them.”