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December 12, 2016 | PROPERTY REPORT
Hit the road with your home Moving a house can be a cheaper option to building new. Lawrence Watt looks at the risks of moving a home lock, stock and barrel
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elocating a house is a cheaper way to buy a dwelling, suiting ‘DIYers’ or folk who are good at organising subbies and workers. Paradoxically, generally it is people buying their second house, who are literally moving houses, says Craig Walker, a house removal specialist. They tend to have a higher percentage of equity than first timers. Walker owns and manages a house removal company business in Kumeu and has been moving houses since 1961, when he was still in his teens. During that time, the most challenging house removal was onto a section with a 45 degree slope, while the biggest house he moved had to be cut into 11 pieces, each one on a truck. The huge Remuera mansion, as with all two-storey houses, needed a crane to help reconstruct it on its new site in the country. Walker says effectively the size of the house does not matter, so long as it can be cut into reasonably sized chunks. The furthest he has moved a house is from Auckland to Linton Army Camp near Palmerston North, no sweat given it was a solid army building. Many costs, such as driveways and services, are similar to building a new house in the boondocks. They will vary substantially depending on how far the house has to be moved to, whether it has to be cut up, how far it is from the road and whether or not a crane will be needed. As with building a new house, you need to consider having a driveway laid, pay for power and telco connections, water, drains and council consents. That’s not to mention, landscaping, driveway and path, and fencing. Walker gives people a list. Occasionally he advises people against it, based on his reading of them. “It’s not for everybody,” he says. Walker estimates the total cost of moving a house and making it habitable is generally around half the cost of building a new house (plus the cost of land). He even gives people a form to use to work out all of the costs. Generally houses are moved late at night, so as not to cause traffic jams, and rather than the expensive option of taking down power or phone lines, the roof is cut off, then replaced. Usually the houses are moved from a suburban street to a country location — a lifestyle block. As a rule of thumb, only weatherboard houses can be moved successfully. Walker says he once saw someone try to move a brick house, but the bricks had to be removed and then re-clad over the house’s wooden frame. Chimneys also have to be rebuilt. “So long as the house is made of timber, it’s okay,” he says. If the house has a large concrete block base, this will need to be built afresh.
Craig Walker, who owns a building removal business in Kumeu, says so long as a house can be cut into reasonably sized chunks it can be moved and rebuilt. FILE / BRETT PHIBBS
WATCH OUT FOR PROBLEMS FROM THE LEFT FIELD Cushla Clark and her partner Rick Horst moved a Mt Eden old villa onto their Matakana property a few years back. Cushla says they love their kauri home but many costs were higher than expected. She says the lines company gave a verbal quote for undergrounding power of around $10,000, but the eventual cost was $50,000. They used a builder to ‘re-gib’ but he substantially underestimated. “He hadn’t looked at the house,” she says. Other costs, needed in rural areas, such as swales (a place to hold water, to prevent runoff) were also a surprise for the former city-slickers. However, the removal went smoothly, partly because they had ensured their section was flat. “The removal company did a great job,” she says
You might expect kitset or factory-built homes to be easier to move but Walker says that most wooden house are strongly made. Although pre-built homes are inevitably narrow enough to fit on a truck, Walker says most houses can be cut into pieces, then re-assembled on the site. Prices for an old ‘character’ three-bedroom house in South Auckland start at around $10,000 on Trade Me, up to $100,000 for a large bungalow or more for a two-storey mansion on Walker’s lot. Over time, the house may have settled on the ground.
When it is made square again, some cracked plaster should be expected. A keen DIY-er can replace the plasterboard or Gib, although plastering requires a knack. Unless you re-line your relocated house, filling in with insulation and replacing the windows with double-glazing, it is unlikely to be as warm as a new home. Walker says the council does not require double glazing to be retrofitted, and that in any case, “good drapes are almost as effective as double glazing”. Roof and floor insulation are basic. Walker says he is getting many inquiries resulting from the new unitary plan — but it is still early days. Potentially some 65,000 former heritage houses can now be moved, as a result of the unitary plan, he says. He expects developers will move houses a short distance to create room for a second house, on sections where the plan permits two or more houses on a site. Once in a while something can go wrong with the removal — although it is unlikely, given the wide experience of reputable firms. A decade back a house removal firm was sued after a house fell into a gully and was damaged beyond repair. Over the years, this writer has seen many moved houses. You generally can’t tell the difference. One included a twostorey mansion which had been used by the Blind Institute in Parnell. It was cut into many pieces and moved to Whitford. Its owners were doing it up while living downstairs. It cost a fraction of buying new, and I recall a happy party there — a break from years of sweat and slog.
Tamaki push to provide more housing
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he latest qv.co.nz E-valuer quarterly Property Report figures show Auckland home values are still rising, just not as quickly when compared to this time last year. The super city now has a total of 99 million dollar plus suburbs and just three suburbs under $500,000 (not all are listed in the report). With much of the new Auckland Plan now operative, it’s over to developers to take on the task of increasing the housing supply on land zoned for greater intensification. It is hoped this will provide more “affordable” housing options. The Tamaki Regeneration Programme, with the backing of central and local government, is already exemplifying how intensification can achieve this — and how it can be done in a way that can have positive outcomes for communities. Over the next 15 years, this programme will see around 2500 of the existing 2800 social houses in the Tamaki suburbs of Glen Innes, Point England and Panmure being redeveloped to deliver approximately 7500 new dwellings. The programme’s portfolio has 170 hectares of prime urban land that is 15 minutes by car from Auckland’s CBD with its own coast, parks and amenities. It already has established transport links including two train stations so typifies the sort of land zoned for intensification under the Auckland Plan.
DATA REPORT ANDREA RUSH QV NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON
The majority of the 2500 former state homes that will be redeveloped are dated single dwellings on single sections. These sections can be redeveloped to site up to four new dwellings under the scheme. The new homes will be a mix of one, two, three, four and even five-bedroom properties — replacing all the social houses, and providing new affordable housing and private market housing within each neighbourhood. The new homes will incorporate a range of housing types including stand-alone houses, townhouses and terrace style dwellings as well as apartments. The Tamaki Regeneration Company says the project is about regenerating the communities by replacing old damp state houses with new, warm, dry and architecturally designed homes that take best advantage of the natural and built surroundings, beautifying green spaces, connecting
streets with new walkways and upgrading existing community facilities as well as creating new ones. As well as facilitating job training, employment and business pathways, the programme aims to achieve physical, economic and social benefits to the area. Early stages of development have been focused in Glen Innes, but planning is under way for projects to commence in Point England and Panmure. As old state houses are demolished, tenants who wish to stay in the neighbourhood are being moved into new social housing as first priority. It’s likely the Tamaki Regeneration Programme is contributing to value growth there as the suburbs are seeing the highest rate of percentage growth of any suburbs in the Auckland region since the previous peak of 2007. The qv.co.nz median E-Valuer for Glen Innes has risen 129.3 per cent from $418,500 in 2007 to $962,950; while Point England has jumped 126.6 per cent from $397,500 in 2007 to $900,550. Wai O Taiki Bay (coastal GI) has also risen 124.6 per cent from $528,600 to $1,189,850 since 2007. Homes being built as “affordable” under the scheme are selling from $479,000 for a one-bedroom to $650,000 for the affordable two-bedroom starter homes, designed to easily add an extra bedroom or garage later, and marketed to meet the price cap for the Welcome Home Loan.