Land was valued at market peak, says agent

The Peninsula property market was at the peak of an unprecedented boom last July when the NSW Valuer-General was determining the land values used to set council rates, according to a Woy Woy real estate agent.

Licensee of Wilson's Estate Agency in Woy Woy, Mr Andrew Quilkey said: "July 2015 was basically the peak of the market."

He said there was no vacant land on the Peninsula and that there was a "huge" difference between the Valuer-General's valuation of the land and the market price achievable for a house sale.

According to the Office of the Valuer General the total overall land value for the Gosford LGA increased by 17.2 per cent between 2012 and 2015, growing from $19.64 billion to $23.02 billion.

A snapshot of 25 Peninsula properties taken from Valuer-General's data shows that land values across the Peninsula have on average jumped by about 21 per cent over the three years.

However, changes in land values were not uniform.

For example, land in Bay St, Patonga, decreased in value by five percent, while land in Rawson Rd Woy Woy increased in value by 38 per cent.

The NSW Valuer General, Mr Simon Gilkes described the growth experienced across the Gosford LGA over the past three years as "moderate to strong" with the highest increases occurring in residential areas.

Mr Quilkey said his real estate agency experienced a boom at the time the Valuer-General was assessing land values.

"It was July to August that was the peak of the boom and it had never been higher than at that time," Mr Quilkey said.

"That was really when no one knew what houses were worth because we had six buyers fighting for each property.

"Prices were skyrocketing.

"We saw 18-19 per cent growth in six months, so in that six months, basically every day house values went up."

He said the hottest areas at that time were "anything within a 10 minute walk to Woy Woy train station... anything with good views... all the waterfront and anything within five minutes of the Umina and Ettalong CBD and the beach".

Then at the end of last year, according to Mr Quilkey, prices dropped off but have since recovered since the beginning of 2016 although there is less stock and fewer buyers.

"The trigger was the Chinese share market when that started to get uncertain we lost a lot of Sydney investors."

Mr Quilkey said there was a "huge" difference between the Valuer General's estimate of the unimproved value of a block of land and the market price achievable for a home and land.

"If it is a brand new house instead of a 30-year-old house, that could mean a couple of hundred thousand dollars difference in the price," he said.

According to Mr Quilkey, Gosford was already a high-rating council.

"People in Sydney are paying the same if not less," he said.

Mr Quilkey said he had been working as an agent on the Peninsula for at least 12 years and said he believed that in that time the growth rate in property values across the area has been an average of 70 per cent.

He said the new valuations promise to deliver a similar scenario to that experienced during the last boom of 2003-04.

"If you go back rates went up a lot in 2004-05 but then in 2008 when everyone's land valuations dropped by 30 per cent, the council didn't adjust its rates the other way," he said.

Interview, 18 Feb 2016

Andrew Quilkey, Wilson's Estate Agency Woy Woy

Email, 8 Jan 2016

Kelly Burke, NSW Office of the Valuer General

Reporter: Jackie Pearson