Really? Mangere East? The Auckland market is out of control

PHOTO: THIS PROPERTY ON VINE ST SOLD FOR $2.343 MILLION, A RECORD FOR MĀNGERE EAST. (PHOTO: TINA TILLER)

The cost of housing in South Auckland just keeps going up and up. Do record real estate prices spell the end for Māngere as we know it?

Chaotic scenes have been playing out around the quiet suburban streets of Māngere East over the last two weeks.

According to witness reports, a gang member was run off his motorbike and gunshots were heard on Yates Rd on October 30. A few days later over 20 rounds were fired into a house on the same street. Police said the young family who live there, who are not connected to any gang, were very fortunate not to be injured or killed.

But just a few weeks earlier, and only a few minutes’ walk away, there was a different type of chaos as a property on Vine St sold at auction for $2.343 million. According to the real estate agent who sold it, Xavier Tofilau, the sale is the largest ever in Māngere East for a property in a single house zone.

Tofilau says it’s not the only massive sale he’s recently overseen, with another of his properties going for $1.9 million.

“At the moment any three-bedroom house in Māngere East is selling for $1.3 to $1.4 million – and these houses are not the best looking houses – and it’s just increased over lockdown,” he says on a uncharacteristically quiet Saturday morning, a result of the level three restrictions on open homes. “I’m selling over 10 a month. I’ve got another 10 auctions lined up for November and it will probably be the same for December.”

What surprised him most about the Vine St sale was that even though the lot has two houses on it, it can’t be subdivided or developed further under its current zone and there’s no guarantee new zoning rules will change that. “It’s got zero development potential,” he says. “I thought maybe it would go to $2 million so for it to go for $2.343 million is mindblowing.”