New Plymouth. File photo Photo:
A Covid-19 effect appears to be behind Taranaki bucking the trend of sliding property prices - at least for now.
While Wellington prices are down more than 13 percent on a year ago according to figures released by CoreLogic this week, Taranaki's are up more than 10 percent.
A real estate agent with Harcourts Team Taranaki, Mike Powell, has noticed the province has been punching above its weight.
"New Plymouth in particular but Taranaki in general is holding up very well and in fact last quarter we were the only region in New Zealand to show an increase in price over the same time last year, which was 1.76 percent - most other region's dropped a little bit."
Mike Powell of Harcourts Team Taranaki says people are moving to New Plymouth for lifestyle reasons. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Powell was quoting figures from the Real Estate Institute.
He thought there was a pandemic effect at play.
"The Covid thing had a very big part in people's lives and many of them found they didn't need to necessarily work in an office and some of them found they didn't need to live in the middle of a big city to work.
"And so they're relocating to lifestyle choices, schooling choices, warmth and the sun and New Plymouth stacks up very well from that point of view."
He said most of the enquiries were coming from out of town as Taranaki still appeared under-valued compared to the main centres.
Manifold co-working space owner Graham Nelson, in New Plymouth, said he had never been so busy signing up new members.
"As a result of Covid and the lockdowns that people have lived through it's really fast-tracked remote working.
"So, their employers are far more comfortable with them not working in the office and I think these individuals are thinking then what am I doing living in Auckland spending time in traffic all those sorts of things when I could be living in a lifestyle destination like Taranaki."
Manifold has recently opened new premises in the beach settlement of Ōakura and was about to move its New Plymouth operation to a larger space in the former Taranaki Daily News building.
Owner of the co-working space Manifold, Graham Nelson, says there is so much demand for remote working the business is expanding. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Nelson said the co-working model was popular among engineers, web developers, marketers and architects, among other professions.
"They come here and set up their home offices, but then suffer from either isolation or distraction or whatever it might be and tend to join a co-working space.
"The typical model or need that we are seeing at the moment is people who join for two or three days a week as well as working from home, so it's sort of a blended hybrid model."
Ground engineer Ben Dixon returned to Taranaki after spending the past 13 years in Wellington.
"A lot of my work is based all around New Zealand and Australia and the odd bit in Asia, so not really specific to Wellington I suppose, geographically.
"So, yeah I could work remotely and travel as needed so it made it a good option to come up here and be able to do that work and keep working on the same project and for the same company."
Ground engineer Ben Dixon recently returned to New Plymouth after 13 years in Wellington. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Dixon, who was starting a family with his partner, said the housing situation also influenced the decision to move.
"For us it was not so much the house prices but the proximity. We were looking at houses in Wellington that were 45 minutes to an hour out of town whereas here we live in a house 10 minutes walk from town.
"I would say the equivalent house in Wellington would be over a million dollars in Aro Valley and here we definitely didn't pay that much, so for us it's a big win for us in that regard."
As Mike Powell would say - what's not to like.
"We've got absolutely everything here fantastic schools, great job opportunities for those looking for work and a lifestyle that's hard to beat.
"We've got rivers, lakes, the sea, the mountain, tramping, hunting all that sort of stuff that really does appeal to people.
"The climate's great and we're easily accessible from anywhere."
The average house price in Taranaki last month was $755,000 up $30,000 on the previous month and $50,000 on a year ago.