The statistics never lie — a house in the suburb of Hargest in Invercargill takes less than two weeks to sell — best in the nation, while Mataura — the town of wide streets and empty shops — has had the biggest rise of house prices, again right across the country.
CoreLogic NZ released its annual review of the real estate market this week and said it had been a year of two halves.
Declining sale volumes and house prices characterised the first half of the year, before finding a floor and then slightly recovering.
But one stand-out was Hargest in Invercargill. It was certainly one suburb where properties were selling fairly quickly, with median days on the market of just 11 — the best in the country. Ohakune, however, is at the other end of the spectrum with the average days on the market at 115.
Property Brokers Invercargill sales manager Tim Frampton said there was one main reason houses went so quickly in the Hargest area — the nearby James Hargest College.
"It is as simple as that — people want to get into James Hargest College and so want to get into the zone. The college is now the most popular school in the area," Mr Frampton said.
"They are good, solid houses. A percentage of them have been renovated but they are all good houses."
He said open homes in the area were very popular and overall the market in Invercargill had picked up in recent months.
He said Hargest had moved out of the first home buyer market and had always been popular.
The highest five-year change in median value was Mataura.
In five years the median price had risen by 138.9%.
Eastern Southland real estate agent Georgia Yeoman said she was not surprised by the size of the increase as it was just Mataura simply catching up with the rest of the country.
"The properties are cheap compared to most of the rest of the country. There is a lot of people looking round and they go quite quickly," she said.
"They are all affordable. We have people coming from different places — it is 10 minutes to Gore, 40-odd minutes to Invercargill, and there are good work opportunities in the town."
She had a three-bedroom house for sale in the town with an asking price of $249,000.
"That is a deposit on a house in many other parts of the country," Ms Yeoman said.
She had sold a house for under $200,000 this year and, though it needed some work, it was a solid roughcast house.
"The houses are all on big quarter acre sections, flat land, and are good solid houses. If you want something for a bit more money you would pay up to $400,000."
