Being an investment property owner I like to compare the current worth of properties similar to ours in the same area. This is easy to do with Trademe Property. They have over 50,000 properties listed so whether buying, selling or renting out the site can be a good indicator of current market values, rents etc. as there are bound to be comparable properties in almost any area in New Zealand. (And their search functionality is great - especially the “search surrounding suburbs option”). I haven’t found anything like this yet here in Vancouver.

Looking through Trademe today I stumbled on the following “For Sale” ad. In case it sells and gets pulled off the site here is the most important detail:

This unit is in the SAME block of units on Blockhouse Bay Rd (Avondale, Auckland) as our one so it’s perfect for comparison.

It’s about the same size and it’s also a downstairs unit like ours - this one has a bit more deck space and is probably a bit more sunny as ours is a corner unit. On the other hand it is in original condition inside (1960’s cupboards, old kitchen & bathroom, old wiring, bare concrete block walls etc.) whereas our unit is completely renovated and modernised.

Given all of the above it is nice to see the asking price being upwards of $175,000. Although this doesn’t mean that it will sell for that much it is encouraging to see the price keeps moving in a positive direction considering what’s going on in the market at the moment. At the end of last year these units were being listed for $159K - $165K and so this is over a $10K jump - almost a 10% increase over the year - in line with long-term averages. And this is during a time where we are constantly reminded that property investment is on the downturn and growth is flattening off - well, certainly not in Avondale.

Based on the above asking price the capital value of our property investment has risen well over 20% since we acquired it 2 years ago.

Avondale as an area has always shown positive growth with the proximity to the city and with much expansion and upgrades happening around Avondale central the area seems to still be going strong. I wish we could’ve bought more of those units back then