THE PRESS - With a wave of home building in Rangiora and Kaiapoi, partly by Christchurch buyers heading north, there is a call for more sections in the towns. One valuer calls it spillover demand – buyers squeezed out of the city market looking north. “There is a lack of sections in Christchurch, so subdivisions in Kaiapoi and Rangiora are showing substantial building activity,” says Philip Wilkinson, a registered valuer from Simes Ltd. Wilkinson says that with inexpensive sections in Christchurch harder to find, families are looking further afield for space in new subdivisions.

Les Hampton, owner of Devlin Real Estate in Rangiora, agrees. “There has been quite a lot of Christchurch buyers that have bought the sections and even buying the spec houses,” says Hampton. “There’s been a heck of a lot of houses built all right, and they are still going up pretty quickly. All the subdivisions are filling up quite fast.” It appears the increased demand from out-of-town buyers, including construction companies buying batches of sections, has helped boost prices for space in subdivisions in the two towns. Figures from the Real Estate Institute show that section prices are about the same in Kaiapoi and Rangiora, with buyers paying a median price of about $160,000 for sections. This is up from only about $60,000 five years ago in the towns, which both have a population of about 12,000. Section sales peaked in the towns between 2003 and 2005 as they did most centres, with fewer sections on the market now. The institute recorded 381 section sales in Rangiora and 26 in Kaiapoi during 2007, the bulk of which were in the first half of the year. Local councils in Canterbury handed out consents for 4475 new homes last year, 244 more than in 2006, Statistics New Zealand says.

Hampton says more sites will needed for the next wave of buyers. “At one time they were selling like hotcakes. At our busiest time I think we sold 200 sections from our office in a year. But there’s definitely been a slowdown since then. There’s not that many sections around. We are going to need some more sections before long. There have been a few sales of land around where the buyers will be looking to subdivide,” he says. “Rangiora is a bit like Rolleston — it’s getting a bit of overflow from Christchurch and it has been a great little place for real estate anyhow. We are one of the fastest growing districts in the country, off and on.”

There have been several new subdivisions opened up in the two towns in the last few years, some releasing sections in stages. The bulk of those now on the market are in Rangiora, with sections in Maple Grove Estate, Arlington Park, Oxford Estate, and The Oaks, while another subdivision is proposed for Johns Road. Other recent subdivisions include The Palms, Camwell Park, and the gated Northbrook Waters Lifestyle Estate.

Over in Kaiapoi, recent subdivisions have included The Lakes and Moorcroft. Paul Biddington, manager of Simes’ real estate office in Kaiapoi does not expect the demand in his area to end soon. “Kaiapoi property is in very short supply, with no new subdivisions coming on-stream for some time yet,’ Biddington says. North Canterbury buyers also have a choice of sections in Pegasus, just north of Woodend. There have also been many rural blocks in the district subdivided into lifestyle blocks.