Pentium

Arrival time coming up fast! 12 yr old son is going to be attending Kingsway (comments?) and we would love to find a lifestyle property with room for chickens, a treehouse and a horse or two, without blowing the budget. What areas should I be looking at, and which ones might we want to avoid? Are there any "dodgy" areas?

Snap Shot

My sister in law lives in Silverdale. I think the new housing development is called, 'Millwater'. Other than that, all I can say is, look on the map.

Silverdale town centre is just a little shopping mall built about five years ago.

Albany, Browns Bay, Orewa, Whangaparoa Peninsular are a short drive from Silverdale IIRC. Can't really comment on traffic as I haven't driven there in at peak times regularly.

Pentium

I have looked at the map hoping for a bit more insider knowledge. Not sure I could fit a horse in Millwater estate! Looking for a bit more land...

A Rush And A Push

Can you give us a rough idea of your budget for a house?

Sparkleydiva

I live at Silverdale. Your budget would be helpful, property is expenisve up here, even though we are well out of the CBD. Dairy Flat has some good lifestyle properties but at a cost. Warkworth is on,y a 20/25 minute drive north and so opens up more for you to look at, but matakana would probably be too far as would Helensville.

Don't know much about the school as my girls completed their education in the UK, bit is just round the corner from me and it does seem to have a good reputation.

Shopping is limited but general needs are catered for with a couple of supermarkets, the warehouse, etc all at the new shopping centre which opened only 15 months ago.

Millwater is just another estate with houses with no land, so not likey to suit. Prices start around $750,000.

Hope thats a starting point for you

davros1984

we really need to know budget, at least 800k gbp if you want space for a horse within 20 mins of silverdale.

Bo-Jangles

Quite, you'll need a million dollars plus for a lifestyle section around Dairy Flat, Albany, Riverhead, Coatesville. Most likely to be a bit cheaper if you went twenty minutes further out north of Silverdale and towards Warkworth.

You're looking in an area which is prime land bank for the continued expansion of commuter belt for Auckland; which will slowly see the gap between Albany and the Whangaparoa Peninsula close up house by house. The dots will gradually join up from the back of Orewa and Red Beach and beyond. Section by section in the next decade I am sure we'll see nothing but more houses and warehouse style shopping continue to infill from it present boundaries of Albany and Long Bay through to Warkworth and beyond.

With current demands and pressure on Auckland housing market, in time I expect we'll start to see more subdivisions and Silverdale will simply become the new 'Oteha Valley' and worthy of note only for being one massive housing estate and gaining new notoriety on the radio traffic reports each day for being the start of the queue of traffic into Auckland in the mornings.

Eight years ago when we arrived in Auckland, Albany, Greenhithe and Oteha Valley were all semi-rural / green belt with open farmland, orchards and very few houses. However, just like Millwater, all the signs of things to come were there; a skeleton of new roads to be built upon and many hundreds of sections for sale. Look at those places now, the green landscape is totally scraped off and you can barely fit a fag paper between some of the houses.

I have a friend that bought land and built in rural North Auckland, now faced with having a mini-housing estate alongside with 20 houses for neighbours, where previously there were none. Yes we know this can happen 'anywhere' but this is happening on a grand scale in Auckland and very quickly and with little hope of appeal or stopping the process. We had a drive out to Millwater and were not impressed by the potential for the massive bland Basildonesque style housing estate that this will become. Take a tour of Google maps and you can see the land that's been cleared and now largely been built upon.

Have a read up on the 'Unitary Plan' to see which areas are designated for development.

http://acmaps.aucklandcouncil.govt.n...wer/index.html

We've already seen large swathes of open land released like this to high density housing estate and subdivision after subdivision. So if you're looking for open space be careful and check out the plans for neighbouring land; wherever you do buy could potentially be replaced by an estate on your next door neighbours acreage.

garethwm

The good news is that if you buy a lifestyle block and in the future find yourself surrounded by housing development it will mean your property will be in demand and youll probably come out of it well financially if you decide to sell up and move somewhere else. But the others are right. Currently youll be lucky to find a lifestyle block in Silverdale for much less than a million. Have you looked to the south around Karaka - Ramarama - Pukekohe? Most people look there for lifestyle blocks these days. And if youre into horses, you wont find a more horsey community in Auckland than that area.

garethwm

Mind you, you do say 20 minutes from Silverdale which would probably put you more out in the stix with less chance of housing development anyway. I presume youre coming over to take a look for yourself before any purchase? There are no rough areas to avoid in that part of the country as far as I am aware.

Pentium

Thank you, that's great info. Yes, we were expecting prices around a million - hoping less! We are locked into Kingsway school so would need to be within reach of Silverdale. Hopefully it will be a good investment! The search begins!

A Rush And A Push

No dodgy areas up there at all as far as I'm aware. My guess is that the further north you go the less pricey the properties will be. Also inland to the north-west may be a bit cheaper too.

Batty

Have a look at this link - my understanding is that a motorway extension will be built across the river, which would be a bit unfortunate if you bought a place for the view.

http://www.aucklandtransport.govt.nz...s/default.aspx

scrubbedexpat094

We've been waiting for that to be built for years Batty! Hoping they'll get onto it soon as it's desperately needed.