The president of the Otago Property Investors Association has no sympathy for Dunedin residents who are complaining about the city's sharply rising residential property values.
"Nobody's happy. If the prices were going down people wouldn't be happy either, people who are selling. You can't please all the people all the time,'' Wendy Bowman said this week after the report of a 17% rise in Dunedin's median property price in the year to December.
Some Otago Daily Times readers on the newspaper's Facebook page are blaming property investors for the rise, and there is scepticism about the Dunedin City Council's campaign launched this week to attract Aucklanders to the city.
"Great - even less of a chance of buying a house, which is already hard enough!'' one commenter said.
Ms Bowman said it was Dunedin's "turn'' to experience property price rises, but she did not think speculators were pushing them up.
"People don't come to Dunedin to speculate because it's not traditionally a growth city. I think it's probably our turn because Auckland has gone crazy.''
In the past year, listings had been low, which boosted prices. Much depended on whether the anticipated new-year increase in listings happened.
As always, it was about supply and demand, she said. Ms Bowman supports the controversial DCC marketing push to lure Aucklanders.
"We need employment; we need people to move here.''
Low interest rates and ready availability of credit were helping investors.
"I guess it's a good time to invest in property. There are times when the interest rates are so high ... that people go out of the market and don't buy investment properties.''
Ms Bowman, who is also a real estate agent, said a home was still firmly within reach of first-time buyers in Dunedin.
Quotable Value registered valuer Duncan Jack, of Dunedin, said he did not have firm data but was hearing anecdotal reports that Aucklanders were buying in Dunedin. It was a mix of owner-occupier purchasers and investors.
"We are certainly hearing that there are out-of-town buyers in Dunedin.''
Mr Jack said he would have expected the seasonal lift in listings to have started well before now. He was not sure why it had not occurred, given the "positive market'' for sellers.
Property speculation has become a hot political issue, and overseas investors have been blamed for helping to fuel prices in Auckland.
Under pressure over a lack of data, the Government introduced record-keeping rules for overseas buyers and sellers, from October 1 last year.
No information was available yet from the new recording system, a Land Information New Zealand spokesman said yesterday.
"By April 2016, we believe we'll be in a position to make this information public because it will be more complete, due to the majority of buyers and sellers being required to provide the new information,'' the spokesman said.
