The growing flow of New Zealanders returning home from lives abroad as a result of the global disruption caused by Covid-19 is beginning to impact on Ponsonby’s real estate market.
These included an increase in the number of open home inspections from Kiwis who have recently returned home from various overseas locations over the past two months, along with a former-UK-based Kiwi lawyer who came through Blair’s listing at 3 Farrar Street in Grey Lynn shortly after she had completed her two-week quarantine isolation period. Then there were the parents of a Qatar-based telecommunications executive who went through another of Blair’s listings – a substantial family home at 24 Buxton Street, Point Chevalier - with a view to purchasing the home ready for their son and his family to move into on their return to Auckland in the next few months.
“What started as a trickle of email enquiries from ex-pat Kiwis talking about coming home in April and May has now evolved into direct personal enquiries in person since June and into July,” said Blair.
“With a reported number of over 30,000 New Zealanders having returned to New Zealand over the last two months, it’s reasonable to expect that most will be looking for homes to buy in Auckland - where corporate job opportunities are most prevalent, and where most new businesses are being started.”
The new wave of Covid-19 linked expat home-buyer interest in Ponsonby, Herne Bay, Westmere, Freemans Bay and Grey Lynn comes simultaneously with a string of high-value sales through Blair at Bayleys Ponsonby. In the past eight weeks Blair has sold over $27,000,000 in residential real estate, with an average sale price of $2.75M. These sales include a chic six-bedroom/four-living room residence complete with fitted-out commercial office space for a small business/enterprise at 14 Crummer Road which had been on the market for more than three years with other real estate agencies.
Replacing these listings, and reflecting a pair of lifestyle-focused opportunities for returning Kiwis to the Greater Ponsonby area, are Blair Haddow’s latest two listings which have just come onto the market as this edition of Ponsonby News went to press.
The first is at 74 Vermont Street, Ponsonby, and showcases a Balinese-styled swimming pool and cabana outdoor entertaining area surrounded by lush mature landscaped grounds. The second is an architecturally designed upmarket 298-square metre four bedroom townhouse at 53B Wellpark Avenue, Grey Lynn, which backs directly onto the grassed area of Wellpark Reserve.
“With both homes offering exceptional outdoor living – one with a sub-tropical garden setting and the other a stereotypical Kiwiana suburban park, prospective purchasers are looking past the immediacy of winter, and ahead to settlement dates which will have them in either of these beautiful summer lifestyle homes by spring in time for the warmer summer season,” Blair said.
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